New Directions
by Raycho
Summary: Over the summer holiday Quinn realises what she truely wants. So when she gets back to school she does everything she can to get that. That being one Rachel Berry.
1. Chapter 1

The crowds parted, allowing her to walk through the halls freely without anyone in her way. All eyes were on her as she strode with her head held high and an air of importance about her. Everyone could see that the old Quinn Fabray was back, the HBIC was reinstated in her and that meant everyone knew to stay out of her way. The look of determination and purpose was evident on her face as she continued down the hall. The students of McKinley High could only hope that they were not in any way involved in whatever scheme she was planning, as they all knew the wrath of Quinn Fabray was not something anyone wished to have upon them.

Quinn allowed a quick smirk to play across her face before she placed her uncaring and emotionless mask back on. She couldn't deny that she had missed this. The way everyone at school feared her and made sure to get out of her way when they saw her coming. She knew that they all saw it on her face; everyone knew that she was up to something. However, she was pretty sure that whatever they were guessing it was, they were far from the truth.

Yes she had a plan and yes she was as determined about it succeeding as she was with any other plan she had ever had, if not more so. But this time her plan was not selfish. Well maybe it was a bit. But this time it was not about popularity or getting back on the Cheerios or choosing a certain boy to help her climb her way back up the social ladder. Neither was she a part of any scheme Sue Sylvester was hatching. No, the days of her doing that woman's dirty work was far behind her. So were the days where all she cared about was what people thought about her. Well what most people thought about her, she cared a lot about what one particular person thought of her. In fact that was mainly what her plan was all about.

It all started in the Summer Holidays. Well in hindsight it actually started a long time before that, but the part that is relevant right now started one summer night at the Fabray household.

'_Hello?' _her mother answered the phone politely.

'_O hello Patty!'_

'_What? Really? Oh dear.'_

Quinn could only hear one side of the conversation, but it was obvious something bad had happened.

'_That is terrible.'_

'_Yes of course, of course'_

'_Uh huh. Uh huh. Yes. Okay. Noooo!'_

'_Oh okay. Yes okay.'_

'_See you then sweetie'_

'_Yes okay. Bye._

Judy walked back to the dinner table and sat down with a solemn look on her face.

'_What was that about mum?' _ Quinn asked hesitantly

'_Oh umm. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but George has died.'_

'_Oh. That's…sad.'_

Quinn racked her brain for a long while, but she couldn't get to it and so she had to ask.

'_Sorry mum but uhh who is George?'_

'_George. You know George.' _Her mother answered unhelpfully.

'_Uhh no I don't. Well I certainly don't remember him.'_

'_Oh Quinnie you are ever so forgetful. George is your father's uncle's cousin.'_ Judy said and looked at Quinn expecting her to suddenly remember.

'_What? Seriously, you expect me to remember my father's auntie's son's cousin's uncle or whatever it was?' _Quinn replied amazed at her mother.

'_First of all he is your father's uncle's cousin. Don't over exaggerate' _Judy said sighing _'and also you should remember him. He is the one who gave you that lovely doll for your birthday.'_

'_What the doll that had a crazy eye, which I received on my 5__th__ birthday?' _Quinn replied with a hint of disgust in her voice as she remembered the doll. It always freaked her out and gave her nightmares of dolls waking in the night and killing her in her sleep. Only when she was young of course. She wasn't afraid of it now…

'_Yes that one' _her mother's voice broke her from her train of thoughts about dolls and zombies combining forces.

'_Well anyway, even if you don't really remember him it is still sad isn't it?' _Judy continued as Quinn wasn't responding.

'_Yeah I guess it is. Any death is sad, of course' _Quinn replied honestly. She may not really know him and what she could vaguely remember she didn't like, but that didn't mean she was at all happy that the man was dead. She wasn't cold hearted like everyone thought she was.

'_The funeral is this Friday by the way, so make sure you don't have any plans with Santana and Brittany then okay?'_

'_Sure mum. I'll call Santana now and tell her I can't go to Breadstix with them anymore' _she said as she got up to go make the call.

The funeral wasn't too bad. She was kind of dreading it because you always picture funerals to be depressing and dark. But this one was actually okay. It's not like people were jumping up and down or singing for joy, but it wasn't depressing either. The idea of the funeral seemed to be more about celebrating Jeff's life. No George's life. _Oops! _Rather than crying that he had lost his life. However there was one moment in the funeral where things did get quite heavy. Well they did for Quinn anyway. George's best friend was at the front reminiscing about the fun they had had together, when he suddenly started talking about how George was the type of person who went for things. If he wanted it, he would go after it. The best friend then said he wished more people were like that and then he said '_and if George could leave you with one last message, I am sure that he would simply say 'Go for it. Whatever it is that you want but are too afraid to chase after, you go get it. Before it is too late.'_

_Go get it. Before it is too late._

The words still rang loud in Quinn's ears as she reached her locker. Opening it she began thinking about how exactly she was going to 'go get it'. When she had heard what the man at the funeral said she felt something inside her wake up. Those words hit home and she knew in that moment that she needed to do something. She wasn't normally one for believing in fate and all that, but she did truly believe that she was meant to be at that funeral and hear those words in order for her to realise that she needed to chase after what she wanted rather than sit around and mope about it like she had been. However, she hadn't exactly worked out an exact plan. She just knew she was going to do it. All she needed was step one and she was good to go.

'_Yo Fabray!' _a familiar voice called out.

Sure enough, as Quinn turned around she saw Santana making her way towards where she stood. _'How you feeling after last night? Hope you're not too hung over!'_

'_S I didn't even drink. Did you?' _Quinn asked, although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that.

'_Duh I did! The real question is why the hell you didn't!' _was her oh-so-charming response.

'_Umm cause I didn't want to be hung over or even still drunk on the first day back at school.' _

'_Yeah yeah whatever. You are way to frigid, you need to loosen up a bit y'know? _

'_Yes I am well aware that that is what you think. It's all you have really been telling me over the summer. That and you are so so sorry for all you did to hurt me' _Quinn said the last bit in a cute baby way whilst pinching Santana's cheek.

'_Get off me. I didn't ever say such a thing!' _she gasped, swatting Quinn's hand away.

'_Yeah you did actually. Every time you got drunk you would hold onto me and cry, telling me you were sorry and please would I forgive you! So really it was every night you did that. Ask Britt if you don't believe me. Speaking of which, where is B?' _Quinn asked looking around. Since the two had officially started dating over the summer, they were practically inseparable and so seeing Santana without Brittney was quite odd.

'_I am going to choose to ignore you making fun of me and telling horrid lies about me because I do not wish to ruin our newly mended friendship. B would get upset if we started fighting again. And as of Britt, she is speaking to her new English teacher about something. Gonna go get her in a few minutes.' _Santana's mild anger had visibly vanished as she talked about Brittney, a small smile and a faraway gaze on her face.

Quinn just smiled knowingly. She usually teased Santana about how whipped she was, but today she would let it slide. And in all honesty she was so happy for her two best friends. She had witnessed first-hand how much pain they had both gone through as they struggled, well Santana struggled, to understand the feelings they shared for one another. Also Quinn was jealous. Very jealous actually because she wanted what they had, more than they could ever know.

'_Well I'll see you later bitch' _Santana called out as she walked off to meet Brittney.

Quinn just smiled and turned back to her locker. She gathered her books and was about to head to class when her eyes caught something. She turned her head to look properly and she allowed a huge grin to spread across her face as she looked upon the one thing she wanted. The thing she was determined to get, no matter what. She was about to walk over when she saw something else that stopped her in her tracks and took the smile right off her face. The main thing that stood in her way to getting her one desire was now also in her line of view. She had forgotten about that one small problem when she had decided to 'chase her dreams'.

She looked sadly at the scene in front of her and her heart ached a little at the sweetness she was witnessing. Then her heart seemed to drop into her stomach as she saw her main obstacle reach down and take claim to the one thing she most desired.

She watched sadly as Finn bent down and softly kissed Rachel on the lips.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who read my first chapter. Thank you especially to those who reviewed it or added it to their story alerts or favourites. It means a lot. I know I am not the best writer, but we have to start somewhere right? Lol**

**Sorry it is such a short chapter and for taking a while to update it. Real life has been quite hectic. Also I wish I had the sense to make my first Fanfic cause I don't think I am up to a full blown out story. But I will do my best.**

**EmotionalPanda I can't believe I spelled it Brittney. I know it is Brittany so I have no idea why I did that. My bad…thanks for pointing it out.**

**JustASimpleAvidReader Yeah I can see what you mean. I will try to not make that kind of mistake again. **

**Well I will now stop with the ramblings…**

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

Seeing Finn kiss Rachel had admittedly made Quinn lose a lot of the confidence she had when she was striding down the school halls that morning, but she refused to let it bring her down entirely. Quinn was not a quitter, especially when it came to something she really wanted and she really wanted Rachel. So as she walked into Glee practice she kept her head held high and walked over to Rachel.

'Hey'she said happily as she sat down next to the brunette

Rachel looked taken aback by Quinn's friendliness, but quickly recovered and answered back cheerfully 'Hello Quinn. Did you have a wonderful holiday?'

'Well I did actually. It was quite an uhh…eventful and eye opening summer actually'she replied smiling.

Rachel on the other hand had a confused look on her face as she said _'_Umm okay. That's…good.'

'Yes, it is.'Quinn held back a giggle as she saw Rachel's brow knot even further in confusion. _God she is so cute when she is confused _Quinn thought smiling to herself. She was just about to ask Rachel about her summer when she felt someone sit down next to her.

'Uhh hey Quinn' _oh great! Finn, just the person I do _not _want to be here right now._

'Hi Finn' she gave him a tight smile before turning back to talk to Rachel.

'Uhh Quinn?' he said cautiously.

Quinn turned around slowly before biting out 'Yes?'

'Well I just wondered if you could uhh…well you know' he stumbled while making a 'shoo' motion with his hand.

'What? You are trying to shoo me away like a dog?' she bit out, giving him her best glare.

'Huh? I…no. I just well I would quite like to sit by my girlfriend' he said smiling a sickeningly sweet smile at Rachel over Quinn's shoulder.

'Well Finn I think Rachel should get to decide who she sits next to, don't you?' she said raising her eyebrows.

They both looked at Rachel expectantly who sat with wide eyes. She looked at Quinn then at Finn, then back to Quinn giving her an apologetic smile. 'Quinn I think…'

'Doesn't matter' the blonde cut her off 'I'll just go sit somewhere else.'

'Quinn it's just that…'

'No really Rachel I don't need an explanation. I get it. And it's fine…really' she said, then turned round to make her way to sit at the back.

Sighing, she opened Jane Eyre and began reading. She was soon lost in the book, transported to the 1800's. She so wished she was more like Jane; brave and independent. Not to mention moral, she truly wished to be moral above all things. Somewhere along her childhood she had become selfish and vindictive, and she hated herself for it. Looking at her life made her sick. She didn't quite understand why or how she had ended up the way she did. It had begun with small things like lying to her parents and laughing when someone was slushied at school. Even back then she felt sick when she did such things, but over time she learned to ignore the unsettling feeling in her stomach as she began joining in with the slushie attacks and the name calling. Not to mention the drinking and the partying, at least those last two things made her feel better for a while. But now, now she knew it had to end. The popularity and the power she got were not worth all the pain she caused. If she wanted to be like Jane Eyre, she had to do something about it and that was exactly what she was planning on doing.

Suddenly her book was being grabbed from her hands 'What's this?' Santana asked eyeing the book.

'Jane Eyre. Obviously' she replied trying to grab the book back.

'Haven't you already read this like a thousand times?' Santana asked, opening the book to a random page. 'Looks kinda boring if you ask me'

'Yes but I didn't ask you, did I?' Quinn replied coldly.

'It's true S, she didn't ask' Brittany added smiling at Quinn warmly.

'Thank you B' Quinn replied, returning the smile 'do you think you could also get your girlfriend to give me back my book?'

'Of course I can, she does everything I ask her to' Brittany said smiling widely.

'Umm no I don't B.' Santana said, then turning to Quinn, 'I don't do everything she says. I am an independent woman who takes orders from no one.'

'Sanny?' Brittany pouted, moving closer to a now unsure Santana

'Don't even try Britt. It won't work.'

'But San you know I don't like it when you are mean to Q' the blonde pouted.

'Yeah well I'm not being mean. I'm just messing with her.' Santana said moving away slightly.

'But she doesn't like it San, and neither do I' she said closing the gap between the two. 'And you know how…stubborn I get when you do things I don't like.'

'Umm yeah you do get a bit stubborn' Santana stammered.

'But you also know how generous I can be when you do things I do like' She whispered into the Latina's ear seductively.

'I uhh' Santana coughed weakly 'yeah. You uhh can be quite…generous I guess.' Santana was a hopeless mess now. In reality they all knew from the start that she stood no chance. Even without Brittany talking suggestively to her, Santana would have caved eventually.

'Oh well thank you' Quinn laughed 'miss independent woman'

'Shut it Fabray.' Was all Santana could retaliate with as her mind was still elsewhere.

'You are so whipped' Quinn laughed poking Santana's side.

'Get off!' she slapped at Quinn's hand disgustedly 'at least I'm getting some later on. Can't say the same for you. Unless you and Sam have decided that Ken and Barbie deserve another shot.'

'What? No, of course not.' Quinn replied quickly 'Sam and I are definitely still over. I don't like him anymore.'

'I'm glad. I don't think you really liked him Q' Brittany joined in.

'Yeah I did. I mean kind of. He is a nice guy' Quinn tried hopelessly.

'I thought so' was all Brittany said.

Quinn stayed quiet for a while wondering if it was that obvious to everyone. She meant what she said. She had liked Sam, but not really in a boyfriend type way. Their relationship began for popularity reasons alone, well for her anyway. But as time went on she realised he wasn't such a bad guy. Obviously she hadn't liked him liked him. She didn't think of him when a love song came on or miss him over the weekend or enjoy their make out sessions. So in relationship terms she did not like him at all, but as a guy, as a person he wasn't half bad. That's why she had felt so bad about cheating on him with Finn; she didn't want to hurt him.

Looking back she guessed the reasoning behind it was more to do with her trying to prove that the reason their make out sessions didn't do anything for her had more to do with him than her. _How wrong was I? _

She looked over at Sam now and smiled warmly, hoping that they were still okay. He gave her a small smile in return. _Better than nothing._

The she looked over at Rachel who was rambling away excitedly to a bored looking Finn about something. She hit him when she noticed he wasn't really listening. _What a douche. You're supposed to actually pay attention to someone you supposedly love. Hope he gets put in the doghouse for this. _But alas! Finn gave her his dopey half smile and she sighed lightly before kissing him softly. _Ergh please stop!_

'That's gross' Santana spat across the room at the couple Quinn had just been watching.

'Ignore her Rach; she is just jealous' Finn smirked back at Santana.

'Jealous? Of who? You for getting to make out with a midget or her getting to be smothered by your freakishly big man boobs?' Santana laughed cruelly.

Quinn agreed that it was disgusting, but she didn't like Santana calling Rachel a midget, and she certainly didn't like the look on Rachel's face. She was about to say something when a loud voice filled the room.

'Hello everyone! I trust you all had a great summer holiday, but now it is time to get back to what is important; winning Sectionals.' Mr Schue said excitedly.

A loud moan erupted around the room and Mr Schuester's smile fell. 'Why is everyone groaning?'

'No offense Mr Schue but I really can't be bothered anymore' Finn said shrugging when Mr Schue gave him a disappointed look.

'Yeah me too. I mean I love Glee club and all, but even after reaching Nationals we are still hated around here. It's just getting so tiring' Mercedes added sounding as tired as she claimed.

'I gots to agree with Frankenteen and my girl. If we can't get respect even after reaching Nationals then there is no hope.' Santana joined in, getting a few nods and murmurs of agreement from the rest of the club.

There was a moments silence before Rachel exclaimed 'I for one am appalled at you all.' She made her way to the front, facing the rest of the club. 'Yes it is unfortunate that we are not yet being praised by our fellow school mates for managing to reach Nationals, but since when do we give up when we face opposition from our peers?'

'I agree with Rachel.' Everyone turned to look at Quinn, shock clearly written all over their faces. Quinn Fabray never agreed with Rachel. The only time she had ever done so had been when the little brunette had suggested they do original songs, but even then it had only been for selfish reasons. Therefore Quinn was not in the least bit surprised when she saw thirteen faces staring at her dumbstruck.

'What? Sorry I think I must have misheard you. Did you say that you, Quinn Fabray, agree with her, Rachel Berry?' Mercedes asked with wide eyes.

'Yeah what's up with that Q?' Santana laughed 'since when do you ever agree with anything Man Hands says?

'Yes I agree with her.' Quinn said glaring at Santana 'she makes a valid point. We never used to give up because some idiot jocks were making fun of us, so why are we now?'

'Yo I agree people' came Puck's voice from the back.

'So do I' agreed Tina

'Yeah me too' added Mike smiling at Tina.

During all this Rachel had been completely silent. Quinn could see that she was even more shocked than the rest of the Glee Club at Quinn's recent behaviour. She understood why, of course she did. She had been awful to Rachel for years and so the sudden change must be confusing to all those looking on, but especially to Rachel. However, Quinn was determined to show her that she had changed.

'Well I'm glad that's sorted. 'Mr Schue said happily. 'Now for the lesson' he continued, grabbing a pen and turning towards the whiteboard. Obviously his teaching skills had not changed. _Pathetic. And people think he is a good teacher. _Quinn blocked out whatever he was rambling on about and began thinking about how she could convince Rachel she wasn't up to anything bad.

'Hey Rachel wait up' Quinn called out after Glee had finished.

The brunette turned around slowly, coming to a stop just by the door. 'Yes?' she asked sceptically.

'Just thought we could walk together to our cars' she replied with a broad smile.

Rachel looked at her quizzically before smiling back hesitantly 'Okay, sure.'

'Cool' she said grabbing her bag and catching up with Rachel, 'so how was your holiday?'

'Oh yeah it was okay.'

'Just okay?' she looked at Rachel while raising a perfect eye brow.

'Yes Quinn it was okay.' Rachel replied shortly.

'Oookay. Sorry for asking.' Quinn knew that Rachel wouldn't trust her or open up to her yet, so she didn't push it.

'No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bite your head off like that.' Rachel apologised sighing.

'Hey it's okay. I get like that when people try and get nosey with me too' Quinn laughed.

Rachel laughed as well 'Yeah I know!'

An awkward silence began creeping upon them when Rachel quietly 'Thanks. For you know…agreeing with me.'

'No problem, what you said was true' Quinn shrugged.

'Yes it was' Rachel agreed. 'Umm also sorry for uhh…'

'Choosing to sit by your boyfriend instead of by me?' Quinn offered

'Yeah.'

'Honestly Rachel, it's okay. He is your boyfriend after all' Quinn said with a hint of disgust in her voice, 'and I am, or used to be your 'mortal enemy' she laughed using air quotes.

Rachel stayed quiet for a moment before saying 'you were never my mortal enemy. I may have been yours, but you were never mine'

The sincerity in her voice made Quinn's heart soar and tighten at the same time. How was it that everything this girl did or said affected Quinn so much? How could she make Quinn feel so awful and guilty it felt like she was going to be sick, and at the same time make her feel like all her problems had vanished into thin air and her heart was as free as a bird. All from one statement as well.

Quinn contemplated commenting on what she had said but she couldn't find the words, so instead she simply asked 'you have ballet today right?'

'Yes. How did you know?' Rachel asked surprised.

'You always have ballet on Tuesday. Have done since you were like 8' she replied, laughing when Rachel stopped walking, gawping at her. 'Am I wrong?'

'I…yes. I mean no, no you're correct. I just…how did you know?' Rachel asked, still standing there watching Quinn.

'Well I have known you for a while you know. Also you talk a lot about ballet. And I have ears.' She replied shrugging with a small smile. 'Now can we get going, or are you going to stand there catching flies' she joked.

Rachel quickly snapped her mouth closed, which now sported a pout. 'Yes of course. After all I can't be late for ballet. Even though it starts in over two hours, I must go home and get ready. Not to mention I like to get there an hour before the class begins to assure I talk to the instructor first because lately he has been giving the solo dance routines to other girls and I cannot have that.'

Quinn laughed loudly at Rachel's ramblings hardly getting out 'You are so funny did you know that?'

'I was not trying to be funny Quinn. I was being serious' she frowned.

'Yeah I know. That's what makes it even funnier' laughed Quinn.

'Fine, laugh all you want. It's all you ever do to me. Laugh at me. That is if you are not insulting or tormenting me. I knew you hadn't really changed.' Rachel said storming off.

That certainly got Quinn to stop laughing. She ran after Rachel, catching up with her easily 'Rachel stop. I didn't mean it like that. Rachel please.'

She sighed gratefully when Rachel stopped and looked at Quinn expectantly 'How did you mean it then?'

'I know that ballet means a lot to you and I was not laughing at you for it. In fact I find it endearing. I love how determined and driven you are. I was just laughing cause I find it amusing when you ramble. Amusing in a good way.' Quinn finished quickly, silently praying that she had said enough to prove to the diva that she was serious.

A small smile crept on to Rachel's face and then turned into a full 5000 watt smile 'Good answer Fabray' was all she said as she started walking again.

Quinn sighed heavily, silently saying a thank you to the heavens. 'Well aren't you coming?' she heard from in front of her. She smiled widely and once again ran to catch up with Rachel.

When Quinn got home she was happier than she had been in a very long time. She and Rachel had talked for quite a while when they reached Rachel's car. In fact they had talked for so long that Rachel was almost late for ballet. Well, late in the sense that she only got there an half an hour earlier than the lesson began. Quinn smiled fondly as she remembered Rachel checking the time and almost freaking out. She had gone on a rant about being late and then had run off to her car. Only to run back, pause shyly then give Quinn a quick hug before running off again. _I can't believe I never realised how adorable she was before today _she thought as she sat on her bed. Her phone vibrating shook her from her thoughts of Rachel shyly hugging her earlier that afternoon and how happy she had felt at the time.

**Sorry if I was to forward this afternoon. Hugging you I mean. *RB**

Quinn smiled at her phone. She seemed to be doing a lot of smiling recently. **No it's okay. It wasn't too forward. And do you really sign your texts with a star and your initials?**

**Of course I do. You know that stars are my thing. And I like to put my initials so everyone knows it is me *RB**

**Yes I know about your star obsession. I find it quite cute. The initials thing is odd…but I like it too. QF**

**I'm glad you like it, enough to copy me even. I'm flattered. *RB**

**You should be. Btw how was ballet? QF**

**Hello? QF**

**Rachel. Are you there? QF**

Two hours later as Quinn was getting into bed her phone finally vibrated again. Usually she would ignore it if it was this late. But since she was sure she knew who it was she quickly got up and retrieved it from her table.

**Sorry, I had to go eat dinner. Then my dads made me stay down there and we played scrabble. It kind of got out of hand as usual. Dad cheated I am sure but him and daddy said I was being paranoid. So we were arguing about it for ages. *RB**

**Wow you even ramble it texts. Why am I not surprised? QF**

**Whatever you like it really. You find it amusing…in a good way *RB**

**Yeah no I don't. I just said that earlier cause I didn't want you running off. QF**

**Quinn Fabray, your pretence does not fool me. I am not like your other friends who believe your lies. I can see right through you lol *RB**

**You mean you think we are friends? QF**

**Well, I mean we talked for over an hour this afternoon with no hostility and we have also been texting for quite a while without any insults being thrown at each other. But I mean it is totally up to you. I get why you wouldn't want to be friends with me, you have said as much in the past. I just thought maybe things had changed *RB**

The blonde laughed loudly in bed before remembering that her mother was asleep next door and forcing her laughter to quiet giggles.

**There you go with your long rants again. So adorable. Couldn't you tell from my smiley face that I was asking it in a good way? Meaning I want to be your friend? QF**

**Well you seem to always put a smiley face at the end. I thought you were making it your thing, like stars are mine? But I'm glad that you want us to be friends, I think we could make very good friends *RB**

**Didn't really notice the smiley face thing, but now that you mention it I think I might keep it up! And I agree, we could make very good friends QF**

_We could make even better girlfriends _Quinn thought to herself imagining how it would be if she got to kiss the brunette whenever she wanted.

**Well goodnight Quinn *RB**

**Oh and I told you that you liked my ramblings *RB**

**Lol. Goodnight new friend. Sweet dreams QF**

Quinn put her phone away smiling yet again as she rolled over and mentally ticked off Step One.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry it has taked a while, I lost motivation but I will try to be better from now on.**

**Thanks again for the reviews and story alerts etc, it means a lot. **

**grangerevansweasley**** Sorry, the smiley faces were there before and then suddenly they weren't. Dunno know what happened. But I double checked that they were here this time lol.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

The next day Quinn was eager to see Rachel. She had to make sure the previous day had really happened and that they were in fact friends. A part of her was nervous, because she wasn't quite sure how she should act around her now that they were no longer 'enemies'.

As Quinn reached her locker she saw Rachel walking towards her, smiling brightly.

Quinn smiled back at her. 'Hey'

'Good morning Quinn. How are you?' she asked nervously.

'I'm good thanks. You?' Quinn asked.

'I am very good. Thank you.' She paused, looking down suddenly nervous.

'What's wrong?' Quinn asked concerned. She really hoped she hadn't done anything to upset her already.

'Nothing. I guess I'm just a bit nervous' she all but whispered.

'Nervous of what Rachel?' the blonde questioned, though she was sure she knew the answer. Rachel was nervous, just like Quinn was, about how they were supposed to act around each other.

'It's just that I wasn't sure if you would want me to be your friend in the sense of hanging out with you at school, eating lunch together, sitting in class together and generally being seen together. Or if you wanted to be friends in the sense that no one knows about us and we secretly hang out at your house or mine or anywhere outside of school. I mean I would understand if you wanted the latter, after all I am not exactly the type of friend cheerios and jocks would think of as 'cool' so you know it's absolutely fine if..'

'Rachel!' Quinn practically shouted her name as she wasn't showing any signs of stopping, even though Quinn had been trying to get her to keep quiet for the entirety of the little rant.

'Sorry Quinn. Like I said, I am merely nervous, and I tend to talk a lot when I am nervous' Rachel explained, obviously still nervous.

'It's okay Rachel. I understand why you would be nervous, truth be told I am a little nervous…' Quinn paused and looked Rachel in the eye to make sure she got the message through 'but I want to be your friend. Friend in the sense that we hang out, at school and at home and the park and the cinema and Breadstix and the mall and anywhere else you can think of. I am not ashamed of being your friend one little bit. Okay?'

Rachel looked deep into Quinn's eyes, searching for any kind of give-away that she was lying, but all she saw was honesty and sincerity. 'Okay' she sighed finally and smiled up at Quinn warmly.

'Good. Come on then, let's get to English.

Quinn had spent the whole of English sneaking glances at Rachel. Rachel on the other hand totally ignored Quinn. Not because they had fallen out or anything like that, no it was because Rachel was listening intently and writing down notes furiously throughout the lesson.

You would think that that kind of behaviour would put Quinn off, but it actually had the opposite effect, much to her own surprise. As she watched the tiny brunette scribbling away furiously, her tongue jutting out at the corner of her mouth, Quinn thought she had never seen someone who was able to be so adorable and so sexy at the same time.

Sadly they didn't have any other lessons together, so Quinn said goodbye to Rachel as they exited the classroom and watched her walk off to her next lesson.

'Hey Q' Santana said as she came to stand beside Quinn 'what were you doing talking to the hobbit?'

Quinn knew this would happen, she knew that people would be not only surprised, but also unimpressed by the fact that she had decided to befriend Rachel. She also knew that Santana would be her biggest problem. Santana was not exactly a fan of Rachel's, to put it nicely and so the fact that her best friend was going to spending time with her was not going to sit well with the Latina.

But Quinn was ready for this. She knew this would happen and so she had prepared for it. With a deep breath she turned to look at Santana with a fierce look. 'First of all do not call her that. In fact do not call her anything other than her actual name. Secondly it is frankly none of your business why I was talking to her, but since you are my best friend I will tell you that Rachel and I recently became friends. And whether you like it or not, it will remain that way.'

She kept her HBIC face on, even though inside she was freaking out a bit. Santana could easily use this to 'dethrone' Quinn, and even though she felt that it would be worth it if she got to keep Rachel as a friend, she still didn't like the idea of being at the bottom of the social pyramid yet again.

Santana looked at her for a long moment and opened her mouth to say something when Brittany joined them and hugged Santana tightly, giving her a small peck on the cheek as well.

Blushing Santana looked at Brittany and smiled warmly, before looking back at Quinn. She had her thoughtful look on her face, as though she was wondering if she should accept this, or if she should use this new found friendship as ammo.

'Umm why is there an awkward silence. And why are you looking at Q like that San' Brittany broke the silence.

'Q here has decided to befriend Berry' Santana filled her in.

Brittany smiled and clapped excitedly 'Oh yay! I really like Rachel, I've missed her'

Quinn and Santana both looked at Brittany confused. 'What do you mean you missed her?' Quinn asked her.

'I missed her.' Brittany stated again, not helping the two Cheerios at all.

'She didn't go anywhere though Britt' Santana said, smiling at her in a wondering way.

'I know. I mean that I missed being her friend. We used to be really close when we were young, but then you became my friends and you didn't like her so I couldn't be her friend anymore' Brittany explained with a sad look on her face, no doubt remembering how it had hurt her to stop hanging out with Rachel all those years ago.

'Oh' was all Quinn said.

'Really? I didn't know that' Santana said sounding a bit hurt that Brittany had kept something from her.

'Yeah well it doesn't matter now, cause I get to be her friend again and keep you two as well.' She smiled widely.

'Yeah exactly Britt.' Quinn said as she looked pointedly at Santana.

'Hmm' Santana looked at Brittany then back at Quinn 'Okay.'

'Okay?' Quinn asked shocked.

'Yes okay.' Santana rolled her eyes. 'But this doesn't mean that I like the dwarf. I'm just gonna put up with it for B's sake and for laughs. I really cannot even begin to picture how your friendship will look.' She laughed.

Quinn decided to look over the dwarf comment this one time as she didn't want to push it. So she just nodded at Santana and simply said 'Good.'

'I totally can picture it. I think it will be the best thing ever. I'm so glad Q' Brittany said happily giving Quinn a big hug.

'Yeah yeah, enough with all that. Let's go.' Santana muttered, grabbing Brittany and walking off.

Quinn smiled slightly as she tried to wrap her mind around how well that had gone, before running to catch up with her two best friends.

**Hey Rachel. :) QF **

**Hello Quinn. How are you? * RB**

**Yeah I'm good. Just wondered if you wanted to join me for lunch. :) QF **

**As lovely as that sounds Quinn, I unfortunately already have plans. Sorry * RB**

**Oh. No it's okay. Well enjoy yourself :) QF **

The blonde sighed sadly as she closed her phone and made her way into the cafeteria. She had really wanted to have Rachel with her at lunch. Just to prove what she had said to her earlier, that she was not in the least bit embarrassed to be friends with her. Well that and she wanted to spend as much time as she could with the diva.

'Q' Santana acknowledged as Quinn sat with them.

'Hey San. Britt' she smiled at the dancer warmly.

'Where's Rachel?' Brittany whined.

'Yeah where is the hobbit?' Santana wondered.

'I told you not to call her any names San' Quinn hissed at the Latina before adding 'and I'm not sure where she is. Said she was busy so she couldn't eat with me.'

'Aww I was looking forward to being her friend again, I don't want to have to wait even longer' the taller blonde whined again.

'Don't worry B I'm sure you won't have to wait too long till you see her' Santana smirked.

'How do you know?' she whined once again.

'Cause she is right there' Santana said whilst pointing to the other side of the cafeteria where Rachel was walking in with Finn, holding hands.

Quinn turned around and saw them, and she instantly felt sick. She had this feeling every time she saw or thought of Rachel kissing or being affectionate with other boys. She remembered the first time she had felt the sickening sensation in her gut. It had been when Rachel had been talking about her and Jessie making out and how erotic it was. Back then she was still so deep in denial that she had tried to pass it off as the thought of Rachel making out was gross and was probably harming her baby. She had said as much to the brunette as well. But now that she was no longer so blind to her feelings, she knew that the feeling she was having was in fact jealousy.

Jealousy was not something Quinn usually felt as she generally had what she wanted, and when she saw someone who had something she didn't she would do something about it and make sure she got that thing, whatever it was. Therefore the green eyed monster was a relatively new experience. One she did not enjoy.

''Guess we know now what was so important to her that she couldn't hang out with her new bestie' Santana laughed cruelly.

'I'm going to go get her' said Brittany as she got up.

Quinn quickly pulled her back down though 'No Britt don't' she all but shouted.

Both the cheerios looked at her curiously. 'Uhh why not?' the blonde one asked confused.

'It's just that she uhh looks content where she is and I don't think she will want to be disturbed' Quinn let out lamely.

'She won't mind Q. Trust me, I know her and she will not mind at all' Brittany smiled brightly as she quickly got out of Quinn's grasp and headed of in the direction of Rachel and Finn.

Quinn watched as she saw Brittany pull Rachel and hug her tightly before quickly saying something to her. Rachel looked confused but her face softened as Brittany began talking hurriedly to her. She then stretched up and hugged Brittany again before looking over at Quinn and Santana, smiling shyly.

'Oh god! This is just fantastic' Santana groaned as she saw Brittany pulling Rachel over to their table.

'Play nice' Quinn warned her sternly before adding 'please' softly hoping and praying the fierce Latina wouldn't cause any trouble.

'Yeah I know' she grumbled.

'Hi' Rachel greeted shyly, and gave Quinn a little smile.

'Hey' Quinn smiled back.

Santana just rolled her eyes and gave the nervous brunette a fake smile.

'Come on Q, make room for Rachey' Brittany scolded Quinn while motioning for Rachel to sit down.

The nickname didn't go by unnoticed by the other two who both rose their eyebrows.

'Really Britts I don't think I should' began Rachel.

'Yeah I mean your boyfriend doesn't look too pleased right now' Santana stated coldly, making it glaringly obvious she didn't want the diva to be there. Santana hadn't liked the fact that her B hadn't told her about being friends with Rachel even though it was years ago, but now it was even worse because it turned out they had oh so cute nicknames for each other. _The hobbit best leave soon or Imma seriously go all Lima Heights on her ass. Just being in her presence is making my skin crawl. _

'Don't be grumpy San' Brittany pouted 'I want Rachel to stay.'

'No Britts, Santana is right, I should go.' Rachel said, 'But I'll see you soon I promise' she added when she saw tears form in the blonde's eyes.

'Promise?' Brittany asked.

'I promise' Rachel replied, smiling reassuringly at her. She then turned her attention to Quinn who had been silently watching the two in shock as she realised that what Brittany said was true. The two had obviously been friends, and she guessed they were very close at one point. _How had I never noticed it before? _

'Sorry for not staying Quinn' Rachel broke her thoughts 'It's just that Finn wanted to eat lunch with me and we don't often get the chance to because he likes to eat with his football friends a lot. Also I practice in the auditorium at lunch times quite often.'

Quinn couldn't not notice the hurt that quickly flashed across Rachel's features as she talked about how her boyfriend preferred to eat with his stupid friends than with her. But she didn't mention it, she would save it for later, when they were alone and when she had gained some trust and built a better friendship with the girl.

'It's fine. He is your boyfriend after all. It would make sense for you to eat with him' Quinn forced a smile on her face.

'Thanks. And thanks for the invite' the brunette smiled brightly before turning to Santana who was glaring at Rachel as though she was planning a way to kill her right there and make it somehow look like an accident. 'And uhh you too Santana. Thanks and uhh see you later?' she stuttered out in a high voice that was laced with fear.

'I didn't invite you Berry so don't thank me' she snarled.

Brittany slapped her arm and whispered something in her ear, making the Latina groan and roll her eyes. She sighed deeply then put on an obviously fake smile and said 'But it would be lovely to see you again sometime Berry.'

When Rachel sat back next to Finn Quinn glared at Santana.

'What?' the brunette asked.

'I told you not to call her names' Quinn said angrily.

'You said I couldn't call her anything but what her name is and unless I am mistake her last name is Berry. And so Berry is still her name.' Santana smiled with fake sweetness at her best friend.

'Ugh whatever. Just next time try be a little nicer would you?' Quinn sighed.

'And why would I do that?' the Latina scoffed.

'Well I could say because it would be the nice thing to do. Or because your best friend is asking you to. But I know that that won't convince you considering you have no heart. So instead every time you are mean to Rachel I will tell Brittany. And I am sure she wouldn't like that' Quinn smirked at Santana.

'She's right San. I wouldn't like it if Quinn told me you were being mean to Rachey' the dancer confirmed. 'But I know that won't happen cause San won't be mean to her' she added to Quinn, then turning to smile sweetly at her girlfriend.

Quinn wasn't sure if Brittany really believed that, or if that was actually a hidden threat. Whichever way though, Quinn was sure it would work and so she sighed, relieved that everything had gone even better than she had planned. She felt as though everything was going her way finally.

She was wrong.

After lunch she had gone off to lesson with Brittany, stopping to say bye to Rachel. Later, Brittany and Quinn were walking from class and they heard a commotion coming from round the corner. They had rushed to see what was going on.

The sight in front of them sent heat straight to Quinn's head and heart. She could feel blood pulsating through her body in rage. Ahead of them were Karofsky and some of his football friends cowering over an obviously scared Rachel.

Before Quinn even knew what she was doing she found herself marching towards the group. Anger and a new feeling she had never felt before were cursing through her body, pushing her forwards. She reached the group and grabbed a hold of Karofsky's shoulder, spinning him around.

'What the fuck?' he growled confused that someone was even daring to touch him.

Quinn just glared at him, making sure not to lose eye contact even though she was dying to look over at Rachel to see how she was doing.

'What are you doing Fabray?' he questioned still confused but less harshly, considering this was McKinley's undisputed head bitch.

'I want you and your brainless gang to leave my friend alone' she stated with a voice dripping with venom.

'Your friend? Please tell me you are joking!' he laughed.

'Does it look like I am joking Karofsky?' she replied trying to keep calm.

The large footballer studied her face for a long moment before bursting into laughter. 'Oh my god! You aren't joking…you and the glee freak really are friends now? This is hilarious.'

All his friends copied him and began laughing cruelly. 'This is great news. I've always thought that you never truly belonged at top and this is just the thing to bring you back down' Azimio sneered, high fiving Karofsky at the same time.

'You can say or do what you want, but if you go near Rachel again you will regret it' Quinn snarled at all of the jocks, making a few of them cower slightly.

'Oooh I'm shaking with fear' Azimio laughed, shaking his body to push his joke further.

'Yeah would you do? Get your faggot friends to dazzle us to death?' Karofsky joined in again.

'Just trust me that you would not want to find out' the blonde replied trying her best to keep the angry, scary look on her face even though inside she was starting to doubt herself.

The boys all just laughed at her again. 'Be pleased we only have the one slushie' Karofsky sneered, turning and nodding at a boy standing near Rachel.

Before Quinn could do anything the boy had taken the contents of his cup and tossed them all over the devastated diva. She pushed past the jocks to reach her but Azimio stopped her 'You better be prepared cause you could be next!'

With that they all sauntered off laughing and applauding themselves. Quinn watched them with distaste as she joined Rachel and Brittany.

'You go Britt, I'll take care of her' she said softly, smiling thankfully as her friend nodded at her. She hugged Rachel goodbye, whispering something in her ear before heading off to class.

'Come on Rachel, let's get you washed up' Quinn said taking the brunettes books from her and leading the way into the bathroom.

As they stood by the sinks, Quinn cleaning the slushie off Rachel's books, Rachel broke the silence. 'Why did you do that Quinn?' she asked in such a small voice Quinn almost didn't hear it.

'What do you mean?' Quinn asked confused.

'Why risk your popularity for me? It's not like I am not used to the slushie attacks, I get them almost daily.'

Quinn looked down embarrassed and guilty because she knew that she was the main reason why the bullies had started on Rachel all those years ago. And now that she knew how she felt about the adorable girl standing before her, and why she had thrown that first slushie three years ago she felt awful. But she knew that she could change things. She could prove to Rachel that she was different and that the old Quinn was gone.

'I told you that you are my friend now. That I am not embarrassed to be your friend. And I know you may think I am a bitch, but to me friendship means a lot. I do not take the role as a friend lightly. Friends take care of each other; they look out for the other and protect them as well. And that is what I was doing. Because you are my friend.' Quinn finished her speech standing in front of Rachel, looking deep in her eyes.

Rachel was staring just as intently back into Quinn hazel orbs. They stood like that for a while, before Rachel once again broke the silence. She coughed quietly before looking away. Quinn too turned away, still getting over the light headedness she was feeling from standing so close to Rachel and the way she had felt as she stared into dark brown eyes that seemed to be searching her soul.

'Thank you' was whispered from behind Quinn. She turned back around to find Rachel looking at her through the mirror, a sincere look on her face.

'You don't need to thank me, we're...'

'Friends. I know' Rachel cut her off.

'Exactly.'

'But even though we are friends now, I still just can't believe that you stood up for me like that, not because it was you, but because it happened. No one has ever done that for me' Rachel said sadly, looking away from Quinn's reflection as tears welled up in her eyes.

'Maybe it's because people think you don't need someone to stand up for you. I mean you seem so strong and it comes across that you aren't fazed by anything or anyone. So maybe people just think that you don't need anyone.' Quinn offered hopefully.

'Maybe, but I don't think so Quinn' the brunette replied wiping away a stray tear 'I just never had anyone who cared enough.'

Quinn's thoughts went straight to Finn and how he should show his girlfriend that he cares _if he actually does that is_. But she decided not to mention him yet, not when Rachel was already feeling so down.

'Well now you have me. I care' she said instead.

Rachel looked up at her, a thoughtful expression on her face 'Why?' she asked.

It was such a simple question, but at the same time it was so complicated.

_Because you are amazing, talented, beautiful, caring, funny, witty, driven and so many other things that make you so special. I have always cared but have been too scared to show it. I care about you more than you could ever know because I just want to keep you safe and let no harm come to you because when you hurt I hurt and if anything ever happened to you I would die._

These were the thoughts that were flying flew Quinn's head. She wanted to voice them so much, but she knew that it was not the time or place. So instead she said something simple that she hoped would convey how much she cared, without giving anything away.

'Because you are special and you are worth it' she said. As soon as the words left her lips she mentally face palmed. _That sounded cheesy and pathetic. You are crap at this caring friendship thing Fabray_.

But as she looked at Rachel and saw the huge smile that was growing in her face she knew that it had been the perfect thing to say and so she relaxed and smiled back.

'Quinn Fabray you are a great friend. Thank you so much' the brunette said as she went in for a hug.

The blonde hugged her back tightly, giving her a small squeeze before Rachel released her.

'Come on then let's go. Can't be late for lessons Quinn' Rachel said as she looked in the mirror again to ensure that her appearance was satisfactory before opening the door gesturing for Quinn to go through.

'Why thank you Miss Berry' Quinn joked as she walked through.

'You are most welcome Miss Fabray' Rachel joked back.

'Well I'm going this way' Quinn said as they stood in the empty hallway, pointing behind her.

'And I am going that way' Rachel replied, pointing in the opposite direction. 'So I guess I'll just see you in Glee then?'

'Yeah I guess so' Quinn smiled warmly. She turned and started walking away.

'Thanks again Quinn. I meant what I said, you are a great friend' Rachel shouted out, making Quinn stop and turn around, a massive smile plastered over her face.

'That means a lot you know' she replied honestly.

Rachel just nodded her understanding and smiled back before turning around and walking off. Quinn watched her until she had turned the corner and was out of sight. Only then did she allow herself to sully show how happy she was by jumping up and down on the spot and laughing happily. Then she looked around, straightened her skirt and walked off to class, her HBIC mask plastered on again.

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><p><strong>Please review and tell me what you think, even if it critism(constructive). It would mean a lot, thanks :)<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**I know I know. It has been so long since I updated. Like 3 months or something! I could give you a tonne of excuses; I have been busy, I had writers block, I lost my story plan, season 3 made me feel like there was no point in carrying on with this, I was lazy etc. All of which are true, but I still shouldn't have taken so long, so I apologise. **

**If people have forgotten what has happened (I almost did) then I shall remind you. Quinn had realised over summer break that she is in love with Rachel and so now she plans on getting her. They have kind of become friends (texts here and there, Quinn helping Rachel after she was slushied etc.) **

**I understand if people don't read this anymore because I have taken too long to update. So if anyone does want me to continue (I will be better with updates I promise) please let me know when you review so that I don't end up writing the rest of the story for nothing. Thank you…that's all!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

At Glee Rachel gives Quinn a warm smile as she sits down next to Finn. Quinn smiles back, but it disappears as soon as Rachel has sat down, hand firmly in Finn's massive ones. The sight of Finn and Rachel being in any way 'coupley' made Quinn's skin crawl and she had to hold back vomit whenever the thought of them entered her mind.

She used to believe that she felt this way simply because they were a gross couple. It seemed that quite a few people agreed with her, mainly Santana and Jesse, who would complain about the two lovebirds kissing and express how gross they thought it was. But Santana just enjoyed bitching and Jesse hated Finn, so they didn't really count. Also Quinn had begun to realise that it wasn't just the thought of Rachel and Finn together that made her feel ill, but it was Rachel with anybody; Puck, Jesse, Sam, the boy from acting camp she mentioned years ago.

Of course now she knows the truth. Now she knows why her stomach had rolled uneasily when Rachel had talked about her and Jessie's 'romantic and erotic' make out session. It wasn't because her baby was grossed out. No, that feeling was not disgust but jealousy.

She was jealous because she wanted to be the one to kiss Rachel, to hold her and make her squirm beneath her.

Quinn wasn't sure if she knew this at the time but had forced it out of her brain, or if she was really that repressed and in denial that she didn't even realise it. It didn't matter now anyway. It wasn't important when she started harbouring feelings for the brunette diva, or when she became aware of the feelings. All that mattered was that she knows about the feelings right now, and she is doing something about it.

Her thoughts are interrupted by Mr Schue calling her name.

'Sorry, what?' Quinn asks Mr Schue who was looking at her expectantly.

He sighs before repeating himself 'I asked if you had any ideas for songs to sing at Sectionals?'

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. _Seriously, it's the first practice of the year and we are already planning songs to sing at sectionals and yet we only had a set list for nationals on the day of the competition._

'Umm no. Sorry' she replies, feigning an apologetic smile.

He just sighs again and moves on and Quinn returns to her thoughts.

Glee comes to an end faster than Quinn anticipated. It seems as though she had gotten lost in her thoughts. That tended to happen when she thought of a certain brunette singer. Which was _a lot._

She shakes her head to get rid of some of the more risqué thoughts that had been running through her mind and begins packing up her things.

'Mr Schuester why do you insist on ruining my life?' Quinn smiles as she hears Rachel's complaining to their glee coach.

'I am not trying to ruin your life Rachel. I just think that we could do better at Sectionals if we change the dynamics.'

'While I agree that a change of dynamics could highly benefit us, I do not agree with the actual changes you have made.'

A loud sigh filled the room 'Well of course you think that Rachel, you are getting less singing parts.'

'Well yes, of course that is partly the reason I am understandably upset. However, the main reason is that I truly do not believe that giving the duet to Finn and Santana is the best idea. Their voices do not blend well together.'

Another long sigh 'Look Rachel I understand okay? I do. But you have to learn to not be so selfish and put the glee club ahead of your own personal issues.'

_What? How is this Rachel being selfish? _Quinn thinks angrily.

It seems as though Rachel agrees as she humphs, stomps her foot and performs a perfect storm out.

The blonde starts to follow the girl when a voice stops her 'Quinn can I talk to you for a second?'

She pauses and looks between the door and Mr Schuester. She really wants to go after Rachel and at least attempt to calm her down, but she knows she can't just ignore her teacher.

So she turns around slowly and walks back into the choir room.

'Yes?' she asks, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

'I was just wondering what was wrong. You seemed really out of it today.'

'Umm no nothing is wrong. I was just thinking about things.' Quinn shrugs.

'What kind of things?' presses Mr Schuester.

'What kind of things?' the blonde replies dumbly 'Umm just uhh things you know. Nothing of importance…just uhh lots of different uhh…things' she stutters, feeling a blush creep up her neck and over her face.

'Are you sure? I understand that you must still be feeling guilty over everything with Finn and the baby and-'

'What?' she interrupts him angrily.

'Well I know it has been over a year now but what you did isn't something I expect you to forget so easily, so I know it must still be on your mind, and it must still make you feel awful for what you did. Especially to Finn' the teacher replied easily as though it was no big deal that he was bringing all her painful memories all at once.

'Excuse me?' Quinn almost shouted. She could hardly believe her ears. How dare he bring this up. Who did he think he was talking about her baby and all the drama that had come with her?

'Quinn please don't over react. I just-'

'No.' the ex-cheerio interrupts him again 'No Mr Schue. I'm sorry but you don't have the right to talk to me about…all that. I know you think you are helping me but you're not. So just do not bring it up again.'

With that she storms out the room, leaving a flustered man behind her.

The next day she avoids Mr Schuester's gaze in Spanish class and blatantly ignores him after the end of the lesson, simply walking out the room even as he calls her name.

She had been in a foul mood since he had opened his big mouth yesterday. She knew she should have just made an excuse and gone after Rachel as she originally planned on doing. Nothing good ever came out of taking to that man. And to think she thought he was such an inspirational teacher when she first joined Glee club.

Quinn rolled her eyes at herself and carried on her way to her next lesson. Her mood instantly lifted as she remembered what lesson she was going to and who was in it with her. She had decided that she would try and sit with Rachel in the few classes they shared together, one of which was English and happened to be the lesson she was headed to. She knew she wouldn't have to worry about Finn sitting with her because both she and Rachel were in AP classes for most of their lessons and Finn, of course was not for any of his lessons.

As she walked into the classroom she looked to Rachel's seat straight away and was not in the least bit surprised that the brunette was already in her seat with her books out, even though Quinn herself was quite early.

"Hey Rachel" Quinn called out as she walked towards the girl.

Rachel looked up and smiled upon seeing the blonde "Hello Quinn. You're early today!"

"So are you" she replied easily.

"Yes, but that is not a surprise as I am always early. You on the other hand tend to arrive at the last possible moment so this is very out of character for you and so worth mentioning" Quinn smiled lightly as she listened to the diva. She knew Finn found Rachel's wide vocabulary annoying and confusing, but Quinn honestly found it endearing and she loved it about her.

"You are of course right, as always" she said as she sat down in the chair next to the brunette.

When Rachel didn't respond Quinn looked to her side to see why this was and saw Rachel smiling broadly but clearly trying to hide it. As she noticed Quinn was looking at her she shook her head slightly, smiling even wider. Quinn cocked an eyebrow at her, silently asking what she was so happy about.

Obviously Rachel saw the silent question as she said "It's nothing. It's just that it seems that all you do is compliment me, even though I know you were kind of joking this time…well it's still really nice. And weird."

"Why is it weird?" even though Quinn was pretty sure she knew the answer, she still felt the need to ask.

"Well because not even a few months ago you were insulting me and trying to make my life a misery" Rachel replied, straight to the point.

Quinn cringed slightly. She felt that she would never forgive herself for the way she treated Rachel and she knew it would always be something she regretted, no matter how much she did to make up for it all.

Rachel must have seen her cringe as she quickly added "But I know you have changed now. The past is the past and all I care about is now. I don't know why you hated me so much and I don't know what caused this complete turnaround in your behaviour towards me, but the whys do not matter. All that matters is that is has happened okay?"

Quinn was so touched by her words that all she could do was nod dumbly and smile back as Rachel gave her a genuine smile that was full of warmth.

As the other kids started filing into the classroom and Rachel turned to face the front again Quinn said quietly "I never ever hated you."

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><p><strong>I know it's quite a short chapter and not much happened but it was more of a filler chapter…hence the reason I was having trouble writing it, cause it was quite boring :P lol<strong>

**Please review :) Thank you.**


	5. Chapter 5

******Again, sorry for taking long to upload this chapter. I actually had written it and then I lost some of it because my laptop was being a bitch. Also I hardly got any reviews so I kinda lost motivation cause like why should I keep writing if no one is even reading you know? Anyway I hope that at least one person is still reading this and that whoever you are you are kind of enjoying it!**

**Also I realised that I have been having trouble with past and preset tense in previous chapters and so I tried to get that right. I need a beta reader but it is proving harder than I thought it would! **

**Anyway that's all. Please review :)**

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

The girls had begun spending a lot more time together. In all the classes they shared together, which were quite a few since they both took a fair few AP classes, they sat together. In Glee Rachel sat with Finn on her right and Quinn on her left. And when Rachel wasn't sitting with Finn and his friends, or with Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Mike and Artie or practicing in the auditorium she sat with Quinn, Brittany and Santana during lunch.

Of course people had noticed their new found friendship. After all it would be impossible for the ex-head cheerio and current HBIC to suddenly become best buds with the school pariah. Especially since said girls were "enemies" just last school year. However, no one seemed to care too much. At least not enough to question either girl. Well that was except for one person.

"What the hell Rach?" Finn all but shouted at his girlfriend when he caught up with her at her locker.

"Excuse me?" Rachel replied confused.

"You said you would sit with me today at lunch!" Finn explained angrily.

"Oh my gosh! Finn I am so sorry, I totally forgot" the brunette spluttered, obviously feeling very guilty.

"Yeah whatever," was Finn's grumpy reply.

"Finn I truly am sorry. I didn't forget on purpose. I just slipped my mind and-"

"Forget it. It's fine" he interrupted her.

"It obviously isn't fine Finn. You are clearly upset," Rachel said softly, not wanting to upset him further.

"I just don't like being stood up and I don't like it how you forgot about our lunch date. It's like you don't want to spend time with me anymore," the tall boy whined.

"What? Why would you think that Finn? I love spending time with you. I love you, you know that," the brunette said, confused as to where all this was coming from.

"Yeah I know you do. But you are always with other people these days and not with me."

"You mean Quinn?" Rachel asked, a small hint of irritation evident in her voice. They had talked about her new friendship with the blonde many, many times. Finn seemed to hate that they were friends which Rachel could not understand at all.

"Yes. But I am not being prety about this" he said quickly.

"Prety?"

"Isn't that what you said I was being last week when I got upset at you for what you did?" the dopey boy asked with his usual confused expression on his face.

Rachel had to suppress a laugh. She did not want to anger her already annoyed boyfriend by laughing at him, "Uhh I think you mean petty."

"Whatever. I'm not being that. I am upset for a real reason okay?"

"Which is what exactly?" she really didn't have the energy for this. She had spent her lunch break perfecting her dancing for the new number New Directions were putting together and it had left her very worn-out.

"You like spending time with Quinn more than me and I don't like it," Finn said, his anger clear in his voice.

"Finn you can't really believe that can you?" she asked him exasperatedly.

"Well you are spending a lot of time with her, even you can't deny that!" he said, dodging the question.

"No I can't deny that, but what is wrong with me spending time with her? She is my friend Finn and that is what friends do; spend time together."

"But you aren't friends. Not really!" Finn exclaimed.

"Why are you so adamant…" she sighed, seeing the look of pure confusion cross her boyfriend's face and started again, "Why are you so determined to make me think Quinn and I aren't friends? And why can't you just accept that we are in fact friends now?"

"Because you're not! You can't be, it doesn't make any sense. You hated each other for so long so how can you suddenly be friends now?" he sounded so confused and annoyed it was almost funny. Except that it wasn't.

"Look Finn, I understand that it may come as a shock because yes, we did spend the majority of the past few years seemingly hating each other but we have moved passed that now. I have forgiven her and I can see that she has changed and we are now friends okay? Real friends," Rachel breathed out a long breath hoping that Finn would finally understand that this was real.

"I get that you think you two are real friends…but you aren't. Not to her anyway. She is obviously just using you for something!" Finn stated, as though it were the most obvious thing ever.

Rachel remained silent for a long moment before she finally said in a voice just above a whisper, "Just because you think that no one would want to be friends with me other than for some kind of cruel joke or for them to gain something by using me, it doesn't mean that it's true. Maybe Quinn actually likes me for me and wants to be friends with me for the sake of being my friend." And with that she turned around and walked away, trying to fight the impending tears but failing miserably.

"I didn't mean it like that….Rachel! I just…she's just going to end up hurting you Rach! Rachel!" Finn shouted out down the now near empty hallway, and then huffed in anger when his girlfriend just kept walking away.

Rachel spent the rest of the day annoyed and angry at Finn. She couldn't believe him. She understood that it was hard for him to understand that she and Quinn were now friends but he didn't have to be so unaccepting of it and he definitely didn't have to be so mean.

She sighed as she heard the bell ring, signalling the end of her physics class; one of the only classes she didn't share with Quinn as Quinn was some kind of science nerd and so she was in AP Physics.

Having realized that she had wasted the whole class on fuming over Finn's stupid comments she decided to try and forget about it, for now at least. She didn't want to fall behind on school, especially over something so mundane. So as she got up and headed to Glee she made sure to get her focus back on things that were important and ignore everything else until after school at least.

She walked into the choir room and sat down. Since she was, as usual, the first person there she took out her Glee Scrap Book where she kept all her notes, ideas, songs, thoughts and everything else Glee related and begun writing down some new song ideas that she had thought of the night before.

After a few minutes she heard people beginning to file into the room. She closed her scrap book and looked up seeing Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Mike and Artie all entering the choir room. Tina and Mike went and sat at the back while Mercedes and Artie continued with their heated argument over something or someone, she honestly wasn't sure what or who 50 cent was.

That left Kurt, who looked around a bit before sitting next to her and smiling slightly. "Hey Rachel."

She and Kurt had become a lot more like friends recently and yet Rachel still felt like the majority of the time she annoyed him so she was still cautious around him. She guessed it must be her fault, everyone found her annoying, but she couldn't help it and she definitely wasn't going to change for anyone.

"Hi. How was Math?" she asked conversationally.

"Yeah it was fine. Normal," he replied non-committedly and Rachel knew she was already boring him.

She was about to ask him something else, something about musicals which she knew would interest him and so was a safe choice, but was interrupted by a voice.

"Uhh Kurt you're kinda in my seat," Finn said to his step brother.

Kurt began getting up but Rachel stopped him with a hand to his arm, pulling back down to his seat "No Kurt is sitting here."

"What?" Finn asked confused "How come?"

The brunette just gave her boyfriend a pointed look before saying to Kurt, "So did you hear that McKinley might be doing West Side Story this year?"

"What? Really?" the boy replied excitedly, answering Rachel's question for her.

"Yes, it isn't definite but I heard Mr-"

"Rachel!" Finn's voice interrupted her but she ignored him and continued talking to her friend.

"I heard Mr Schuester talking to Miss Pillsbury about it yesterday! I am extremely excited about it. I am definitely going to audition for Maria and I think you should audition for Tony!"

"Of course! How could I not? This is going to be perfect Rachel!" he gushed happily, gripping onto Rachel's hands in excitement.

Finn looked between the two with a mixture of confusion and anger. When he realized that Rachel wasn't going to talk to him yet he huffed miserably and went to sit on her other side.

"Uhh no Finn," his girlfriend said as she stopped him from sitting on the chair on her left.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because that is Quinn's seat," she replied matter of factly.

"Yeah and Kurt is sitting in my seat!" he cried but all Rachel did was shrug and keep her hand on the chair.

"Rach come on," Finn whined "I said I was sorry didn't I? You don't have to punish me!"

Again Rachel didn't answer him, but she did keep looking at him. Giving him a glare which he began shrinking away from before muttering, "Quinn is obviously rubbing off on you. That was so like Scary Quinn!"

Rachel just carried on glaring at him until he sat down on a seat as far away from her as possible and he turned to look away miserably.

"Uhh can I sit down Rach or are you saving that seat for someone?" came Quinn's voice from right in front of Rachel. The diva looked up and smiled warmly before removing her hand from the chair and gesturing for Quinn to sit.

"I was saving it for you of course!"

"Oh and who was trying to steal my spot? I can't imagine anyone being as stupid as trying to take my place from beside you," the blonde joked.

For some reason the way the blonde had said that sent shivers up and down Rachel's spine. She looked at Quinn who was smiling at her. Or was that a smirk? Rachel thought she must be losing it. Why would Quinn be smirking?

She shook her head and smiled back "I don't know, I mean everyone knows how crazy you can get. Then again I am just that worth it!"

"Yes you are," was her reply.

Rachel's heart jumped with Quinn's simple statement. The way she said it, like she really thought Rachel was worth it. She couldn't think of a reply and so all she did was smile back slightly at Quinn before turning to the front where Mr Schuester had just entered the room.

"Okay everyone settle down. Today we are going to try something a little different." He exclaimed excitedly before once again going over to the whiteboard and writing a word on it.

_Maturing_

"Now I know you are all wondering what this assignment is going to be, but bear with me," he continued, smiling excitedly at the kids in front of him.

Quinn just rolled her eyes. _No, we aren't wondering what this assignment will be. It's always the same thing; you write a word on the board and we find songs that sort of, kind of relate to it and in the end we all learn nothing useful. The only thing that changes is the word you write down!_ She ranted at him in her head.

"What I want from you all is to think of a song that you feel conveys something about maturing or maturity. Then next week you will all get a chance to perform. You can do solos, duets, group numbers; anything you want okay?" he finished explaining and looked at them with pure excitement and pride in himself for thinking up _such_ an ingenious class.

Quinn was of course less than impressed, and usually she would just keep it to herself but she was already annoyed at the Spanish teacher and so she couldn't help the scoff she let out.

Rachel looked over at her with a puzzled look and asked, "What was that?"

"I just can't believe he thinks this is an inspiring lesson!" she answered with an eye roll.

Rachel opened her mouth to say something but stopped when Mr Schuester began talking again, "Now I know some of you may be confused as to why I have chosen this assignment but it has come to my attention that some certain individuals in this group need to learn to grow up a bit," he glanced pointedly at Quinn who was wearing an expression that could only be describes as _"are you fucking serious?"_

"Quinn!" Rachel's voice screeched beside her. Turns out Quinn had actually said that out loud! Oops.

"What? You think I am going to sit here and listen to this shit and not say anything?" she replied, voice rising in anger.

"Quinn you are being extremely rude and it is for no reason." Rachel replied giving her a questioning look.

"You really think it is for no reason? I have my reasons and he knows about them," Quinn glared at the now nervous looking teacher before getting up and walking out the room.

Rachel quickly got up and followed her, throwing a "Sorry, I will of course be back presently," to the others in the room.

She caught up with the obviously fuming blonde and grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn around. "Quinn, stop and talk to me!"

"Why? You obviously just think I am being childish. You obviously see me in the same way Mr Schuester and probably everyone else does," Quinn replied, her face only barely hiding her hurt and anger.

"No I don't think you're being childish. I just don't understand why you are acting like this," Rachel replied, finally letting go off Quinn's arm.

"Of course you don't, because you don't know anything about me," Quinn's voice was now raising in volume and her anger was clearly evident on her face.

"Okay," Rachel started calmly, even though it is obvious she was afraid, "then why don't you tell me something? You can tell me why you are so angry with Mr Schuester."

"No!" Quinn shouted, making the diva jump slightly, "Why do you always insist on sticking your nose into other people's business?

"I didn't mean to make you feel like that Quinn. I'm your friend and I thought that as your friend I could be someone you talk to and confide in and I could maybe help you when you are in need of assistance, whether it be emotional or practical or any other form. I really didn't mean to stick my nose into your business, I truly just thought that I was being a good friend," the diva finally shut her mouth when she realises that she has begun rambling and she looks to Quinn for a response.

"Well I didn't ask for your help and I don't want it. You think we are such good friends but we aren't! So please just leave me alone."

The blonde saw the hurt cross Rachel's face and she instantly regretted saying that. But she was never one to admit she was in the wrong and so instead of apologising like she should, and like she really wanted to, she turned around and walked off instead.

Quinn walked down the halls of McKinley the next day, her eyes darting around desperately trying to find the petite brunette so she could apologise for everything. She knew she had lashed out and she hadn't meant any of what she had said. She regretted what she had said as soon as she had said it and she had hardly slept at all last night, images of Rachel's hurt face running through her mind on a non-stop loop.

She can't see her anyway and so she decides to just head to AP Biology, which she doesn't share with Rachel and just wait until English because that class she does share with her.

Science dragged by and so when the bell rang she was the first person out the door as she walked as quickly as possible to English where she could finally see Rachel and apologise and explain to her why she behaved the way she did.

She was sat in her seat, watching the door like a hawk, expecting Rachel to walk in at any second. Unlike her usual self, Rachel was one of the last people to arrive to the class, but Quinn didn't care because at last she was here and she could talk to her about everything.

But then Rachel didn't even look at her, she just totally ignored as she walked past their usual table and headed straight to Tina. She sat down and smiled at the slightly confused girl.

"Uhh hi Rachel," the girl said, her voice filled with confusion.

"Hello Tina. I hope you don't mind me sitting by you, I just think it would be better if I sat by you for a while. Not only in this class but in Math and History and whatever other classes we happen to share. Is this in any way an inconvenience to you because if it is I can easily find a different table to sit at," Rachel finished her speech and looked expectantly at Tina.

"Umm…yes. I mean no, no it isn't an uhh inconvenience. I mean I sit with Mike in Math but apart from that I guess it's cool cause I mean we used to sit together all the time until you started sitting with Qui-"

"Well that is definitely a relief. Thank you, and of course I understand about Math. I will simply ask Mercedes if I can sit by her instead," Rachel cut her off and then gave her a big smile.

She then turned to face the front of the classroom, blatantly ignoring Quinn who was looking back at her with pleading eyes.

This is how the duration of the class went, Rachel never even stealing a glance at Quinn, who was looking back at Rachel at each opportunity she had.

It seemed that either Rachel was very lucky or the gods were not best pleased with Quinn, as at the end of the class the teacher asked Quinn, along with various other people, to stay behind so he could talk to them about some assignment they were doing.

Quinn very reluctantly walked up to the teacher's desk while giving Rachel yet another pleading look, which of course she again ignored and instead walked out the door, talking animatedly with Tina.

This kind of treatment carried on for every class they shared together, which was a lot. Rachel somehow always managed to get out of the class without Quinn getting to even say a single word to her. And by the time lunch rolled around Quinn was at the end of her tether. She entered the canteen and her eyes scanned over the whole room many times, desperately searching for the short brunette, but she was not there.

As she sat down dejectedly with Santana and Brittany, the latter of the two gave her a sympathetic look, "What's the matter Q?"

"Nothing," Quinn replied shortly.

"Hey, don't use that tone with Britt," Santana snapped at her, "Obviously something is wrong, you look like Mama Puckerman called you up and told you that all the bacon in the world has been destroyed or some shit like that!"

Quinn sighed and apologised sincerely to Brittany, "Sorry B I'm just a bit annoyed."

"It's okay. I always get sad when I can't find Santana. Like this one time we went to the butterfly farm and I was playing tag with one of the butterflies, but then it flew away and I couldn't catch up with it, then I couldn't find Santana either cause I had run far away by then and so I got sad and sat down, waiting for her to come and find me. I often get lost but she always finds me." Brittany replied, the frown which had been on her face at the beginning of the story transforming into a bright smile as she looked at the Latina.

Santana blushed slightly, but she couldn't fight the smile tugging at her lips and she looked back at the blonde.

"Well as cute as that is, it doesn't really have anything to do with me." Quinn said as she laughed at her friend who was glaring at her for saying anything to do with her was "cute".

"Of course it does. You're sad cause you can't find Rachey just like I get sad when I can't find San." Brittany replied, a confused frown on her face.

Quinn looked at Brittany and Santana looked at Quinn as Brittany turned to look at Santana, all of them wearing different expressions. Brittany was giving Santana a confused look, as if to say "Don't we all know this!" while Quinn was looked shocked and silently asking Brittany "How the hell did you know that?" and Santana was looking at Quinn with curiosity, and a slight hint of a smirk.

Finally Quinn spoke, "Uhh B how did you know I was looking for Rachel."

"Oh umm I saw you chasing after her at the end of one of your classes, then when you came in here you looked around looking for something and when you didn't find it you looked so sad and so I put two and two together and figured you were searching for Rachey!"

Quinn gaped at Brittany, while Santana was still looking at Quinn with curiosity and a much more obvious smirk.

"Oh okay, well uhh do you know where she is?" Quinn asked Brittany hopefully.

"No, sorry. I mean she could be in the auditorium cause she goes in there a lot. In middle school Rachey always used to go into the music room when she was sad or when she wanted to practice, and I know I've seen her go into the auditorium after she fights with Finn all the time." The blonde replied happily.

"Really? Oh thank you so much B. I'm just gonna go then cause I uhh well I really have to talk to her about something. It's like uhh really important and to do with school obviously and well yeah I'll just go. See ya, thanks again B!" she hurried out before practically running out the cafeteria.

Brittany waved happily at her before turning to smile at her now fully smirking girlfriend.

Quinn practically fell into the auditorium in her haste to get there and she took a moment to catch her breath and compose herself before walking in further. Her face lit up as she saw Rachel sat by the piano, absently playing a song Quinn didn't recognise. She was about to go over to the girl when she saw Finn walking towards Rachel and siting down beside her.

She watched as they quietly talked and as Finn hugged Rachel before leaning down to claim her lips. Quinn felt the familiar nausea in the pit of her stomach which she now was very aware was in fact jealousy.

Deciding she didn't want to suffer through this anymore she turned on her heel and walked sadly out the room. She knew she shouldn't feel so upset by the fact that Rachel had been kissing Finn. They were after all girlfriend and boyfriend and Quinn knew that that entailed lots of making out, but she couldn't help herself feeling so sad at the sight of them kissing. It just made everything about the day so much worse.

And apparently the gods weren't done with her yet. Well Rachel wasn't anyway, or she was. It depended on whether Rachel was punishing her or if she really didn't want to have anything to do with Quinn any more. Either way she was still giving Quinn the silent treatment at Glee.

As she walked into the choir room she saw that Rachel was already sat by Finn, which she wasn't at all surprised about, but then she saw that on her other side was Puck.

_Why is she sitting by Puck of all people? _

She made her way over to them, smiling at Rachel and receiving nothing but an averted gaze in response.

"Puck," she said looking down at the boy.

"What?" he replied not looking at her.

"You're in my seat," she said coldly, "Move!"

"Seats don't belong to anyone, so unless you wanna sit on my lap baby mama I suggest you find a different one," he said, finally looking at her and smirking slightly.

"Puck shut up and just move. You know I always sit by Rachel," Quinn seethed at him, clearly beginning to lose her cool.

"Quinn she doesn't wanna sit by you," Finn said, suddenly joining the conversation. He gave her a cruel, victorious smile which caused Quinn's blood to boil and she had to force herself to breath slowly in order to stop herself from attacking the boy.

"Finn you better shut up before I break your teeth," she finally says, with a very obvious forced smile on her face.

"Just go away Quinn, Rachel doesn't want you here, no one wants you here. No one wants you anywhere. So just go already," Finn snapped back at her.

"Finn!" Rachel screeched at him, giving him a stern look.

"Fuck you Hudson," Quinn spits out at him.

"Quinn!" Rachel yelped, turning to give her a shocked and unhappy face.

"Rach I'm sorry, but he crossed a line."

"Just go away Quinn!"

"Shut up Finn!"

The two began shouting at each other incoherently. No one could understand what they were saying or who was saying what and when, all it was, was a loud noise of angry bellowing.

Rachel sighed and shook her head sadly in disappointment with the two. She had given up; she didn't have the energy or the strength to make them stop so she just left them to it.

They didn't stop until Mr Schuester came into the room and forced them to sit down and keep quiet.

Rachel was lying in bed, finally drifting off to sleep when she heard her phone ringing on her bed side table.

She thinks about ignoring it but decides against it, thinking it could be something important.

"Hello?" she answers it, her voice laced with tiredness.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" came Quinn's voice through the phone.

"Quinn?" she asks surprised, "Uhh no. No you didn't wake me…what are you doing calling me at this time of night?"

"I'm sorry Rach, I just couldn't go to sleep knowing you hated me and so I had to call you and ask one last time for me to explain it all to you."

Rachel sighs before answering, "Quinn you know I don't hate you. We have been through this, I have never hated you and I never will okay? I was mad but I didn't hate you."

There is a long pause and Rachel swears she heard a sniffle but then Quinn is talking again and so she doesn't dwell on it, "Yeah but I still want to explain everything to you. I owe you that much don't I?"

"Yes I suppose you do."

"Okay, good. But uhh I would prefer if maybe we could like umm talk in person?" Quinn's voice is so small and she sounds so unsure of herself that Rachel can't help but agree.

"Fine. Do you want to come over? I'm sure I can explain to my fathers why you are coming over at such a late hour and they would be okay with it."

Again there is a pause before Quinn says in an even smaller voice, "Well actually I was uhh hoping that maybe you could meet me at this place I know? I can give you directions and it's safe I swear and uhh…please?"

Rachel is rather taken aback with how vulnerable Quinn sounds and so she quickly agrees and gets the directions from a very thankful Quinn before quietly sneaking out her house for the first time in her life.

Her car pulls up next to a park and Rachel cuts the engine off before looking around curiously.

Suddenly there is a tap on her window which makes her scream out and clutch her heart before she realises it is just Quinn. She gives Rachel an apologetic face before moving out of the way so Rachel can get out the car.

"So you brought me to a creepy park?" she asks, looking around again.

"It's not creepy," Quinn pouts.

"It is very creepy, I am getting the creeps and so that means it is creepy."

"It's not creepy to me. It's kind of like a safe haven to be honest," the blonde replies clearly embarrassed.

"What do you mean a safe haven?" Rachel asks questioningly.

"Well I always used to come here as a kid. The first time I came it was cause I just happened to stumble upon it. I was running away from home and suddenly I found myself here!" she begins explaining, "Then I started coming here all the time. Every time my dad had one of his anger bursts or my mom had had a few too many to drink and took it out on me I would run away to this park."

Rachel looks at Quinn with sad eyes, realising she really never fully understood how bad her life had been.

"I came here when I found out I was pregnant and when it came out that Finn wasn't the father," she continues, her eyes glazed over as if she was talking more to herself than to Rachel, "I even slept here a couple of times. I slept here a few times when I was pregnant actually and-"

"You slept here when you were pregnant? Quinn why?" Rachel interrupts her suddenly, the alarm and horror evident on her face.

"It doesn't matter. Really it doesn't," she says when she sees Rachel beginning to protest.

"I actually slept in my car on the nights I was pregnant and I slept better than I ever did when I was at Finn's or Puck's. So really it isn't a big deal," she assures her but Rachel still looks unsure.

"Anyway my point is Rach that I come here when I'm sad or when I need to think and I came straight here after our fight. I felt so awful right after it happened and I wanted to take everything back but I was too proud and Rachel I really am so sorry. I'm sorry for everything; for the fight, for arguing with Finn, for not letting you in, for being snappy with you and especially for hurting you. I proved Finn right about me and I hate myself for that," Quinn admits sadly, tears filling up in her eyes and threatening to spill over.

"Quinn you should never hate yourself. You have absolutely no reason at all for that. Yes you hurt me and yes what you did wasn't okay but I over reacted. I always do that and I should have let you explain a lot sooner and we could have avoided all this heartache," Rachel replies wiping astraytear from Quinn's face away.

"You didn't over react. Your actions were totally justifiable, and it means so much to me that you have forgiven me…you have forgiven me right?" Quinn asks suddenly panicked.

Rachel laughs softly before simply saying, "Quinn I'm going to hug you now okay?"

And Quinn smiles, knowing that this of course means she is forgiven. She takes a step forward and accepts the hug she has been waiting a life time for.


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay so like I think I have resigned myself to the knowledge that I am not and never will be a fast updater. Things always happen, whether it's losing my work, getting writers block, being lazy, not having enough free time, being ill. Whatever, there is always something. So yeah don't expect fast updates from me ever. **

**Anyway, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy :)**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

Quinn lay in bed thinking about what had just happened. She had never shown anyone her special little park. Not even Santana or Brittany knew about it, just Rachel. And she loved that. She loved that Rachel now shared something special with her; it was like their little secret. Well she liked to think so anyway.

And yet Quinn couldn't help but feel panicked. She wasn't quite sure what she was panicking over; maybe it was the fact that she had never opened up to anyone the way she had opened up to Rachel, maybe she was afraid because never had she felt this happy before and she didn't quite know what to do with herself, or perhaps she was scared that she had freaked Rachel out and had therefore scared her away. The last one seemed to be the feeling that was talking over her body at the moment.

If she really had scared Rachel away then Quinn wasn't sure what she would do. She knew that she was a lot to handle and her break down in the park had been rather out of character and so she wouldn't exactly blame Rachel for feeling like she couldn't handle it.

But then she remembered how Rachel dealt with it, how she held Quinn tighter when she had started sobbing. How she had kept saying that it was okay and that she was there over and over as Quinn kept saying sorry. She hadn't seemed freaked out or out of her depth. She just seemed to care.

And it was with that thought that Quinn finally allowed herself to relax and breath and just stop all her worrying.

She looked over at her clock and sighed when she saw it was 3am. God she was going to be tired tomorrow, but for the life of her she couldn't find it in her to care. So she rolled over and closed her eyes and as images of Rachel started to meld together in her mind she felt herself drifting off with a smile on her face.

Quinn may not have been able to find it in her to care about still being awake at 4am but she definitely cared now, as her alarm went off at 6:30am. Groaning, she hit her alarm and slowly sat up.

Rubbing at her eyes she remembered why she was up so late and a small smile began creeping onto her face.

As she walked into school later that morning, with two cups of coffee in her system she is greeted by a cheery Brittany and a not so cheery Santana.

"Hi Quinn!" that was Brittany of course.

"Hey B!" she replied, and then turned to Santana and nods, "S".

"Yeah hi Q," Santana replied before saying, "So what happened with you and the dwarf and her green giant?"

"Huh?" is all Quinn said, not really following what the girl had said. She had only had about 3 hours sleep; you can't blame her for not exactly being on the ball.

"What happened between you, Rachel and Finn?" Santana asked again, this time with obvious annoyance.

"Yeah do I have to stop being her friend again? Cause I really don't wanna have to do that," Brittany added on, pouting heavily.

Quinn smiled at her and said, "Don't worry B you can still be her friend. We're fine. We sorted it all out okay?"

Brittany cheered up straight away and hugged Quinn.

"Oh I'm so happy cause I would really miss her and you would to and then you would be all sad again and I don't want you to be sad."

"Umm thanks," is all Quinn could think of as a response.

"Well that's just fab. I am just so ecstatic that I'm going to have to spend even more time around the loud mouthed midget. So relieved!" Santana drawled with more than obvious sarcasm.

However Quinn and Brittany just ignored her and started walking towards Quinn's locker.

Suddenly Quinn heard Brittany squeal and when she looked to see why; she saw her rushing towards a slightly scared, but still smiling Rachel Berry. When Brittany reached her she hugged her carefully, obviously trying to make sure she didn't crush her or anything.

They both started coming towards her and Santana which made Santana groan in annoyance, but Quinn just smiled happily at the brunette and waving at her.

As soon as Brittany was in touching distance Santana grabbed her and pulled her towards their next lesson, with Brittany shouting a goodbye to Quinn and Rachel and waving happily.

That just left Rachel and Quinn, and all of a sudden Quinn was nervous. She thought she had put down the thoughts of Rachel being done with her and all that, but suddenly they were all back and it was all Quinn could think about.

"Hey, you okay?" Rachel asked concerned.

Quinn snapped out of her thoughts and focused on Rachel and forced a smile on her face, "Yeah I'm…I'm okay. I'm good."

Rachel didn't look convinced but she didn't push it and instead just said, "Okay well then let's go. I don't want to be late for Spanish and end up having to sit next to Jacob Ben Israel again!"

Quinn was relieved that she wasn't pushing it and forcing her to talk about anything and so she smiled brightly and followed her to Spanish.

"Hey, what are you doing for lunch?" Quinn asked as they leave their History class.

"Well I was planning on going through some ideas that I wish to put forward to Mr Schuester for our set list for Sectionals. However I am open to other plans if you have them." Rachel replied smiling up at Quinn with a hopeful glint in her eyes which makes Quinn's heart beat faster.

"Uhh…yes. I mean yeah I was just thinking we could sit together for lunch. That's all." She managed to stammer out.

"Why of course I would love to accompany you to the cafeteria for lunch," Rachel paused for a moment before adding, "as long as Santana isn't too mean today. She seems to be in a fairly sour mood with me; even worse than usual and I don't want to have to deal with her snide comments about my stature or dress sense or looks or love for Barbra or my tendency to ramble or anything else whilst I am simply trying to enjoy my food."

"Oh don't worry about Santana. I can't promise that she won't be snarky but I can promise that Britt will keep her in check," Quinn said trying to convince Rachel.

Rachel smiled at this and nodded her head in agreement. "I do love that Brittany is able to have such a positive influence on Santana, it really does make it much more pleasurable to be around her."

"I think you mean you're glad Santana is so whipped!" Quinn said laughing.

"Well yes I do think that is the term people tend to use these days," Rachel laughed as well.

As they sat down at their table and began talking about Rachel's ideas for the songs for Sectionals Brittany and Santana join them.

"B can't we go and sit over there with Janice and Lindsay and the other Cheerios?" Santana whined, while she gave Rachel a distasteful look.

"No I wanna sit with Rachey and Q. They're my friends…you can sit over there if you want though," Brittany said, knowing full well that Santana would never leave her.

And as predicted Santana groaned and slumped forward and glared at Quinn, who just smiled sweetly back at her, then turned to Rachel and mouthed "whipped" which made Rachel erupt in giggles. Santana of course didn't like this one bit.

Brittany started talking to Rachel about the old times and soon they are engrossed in stories from when they were friends and this in turn shifted Santana's mood as she watched Brittany talk excitedly and happily with Rachel with a small smile on her lips and light in her eyes that Quinn only ever sees when Santana is watching Brittany be happy.

However the moment passed when a voice said, "Rach I wanna talk to you."

They all stopped talking and looked up at Finn; each of them wore almost identical frowns which of course made Finn squirm a little and amend himself. "Uhh I mean can I talk with you…please?"

Rachel sighed but then got up and nodded at Finn before she turned to the table and said, "I will be back momentarily."

Brittany waved at her happily and then focused her attention on the slushie Santana had got for her.

"So what's the deal?" Santana asked as soon as Rachel and Finn were out of earshot.

"What do you mean?" Quinn replied, once again baffled by the Latina, and this time it wasn't die due to her lack of sleep.

"I know you said that you're now best buds with Berry, but I've decided that that just isn't gonna fly with me so I wanna know what the real deal is," Santana said as she leant forwards an evil glint in her eye as she continued, "Is it some kind of plan to embarrass her beyond repair? Or are you planning on getting Finnept back? Cause while I'm down for causing Stubbles some pain I'm really not loving the idea of you and that oaf getting back together."

Quinn stared at Santana for moment before she simply rolled her eyes and said to Brittany, "So B when did you and Rachel first become friends?"

"Um excuse me Tubbers but you can't just ignore me like that. I wants in on this plan of yours," Santana exclaimed before Brittany had a chance to reply to Quinn's question.

Quinn sighed and turned to face Santana again, "You can't be in on the plan because there is no plan. There is no plan because I am not doing any of this to embarrass Rachel or hurt her or to get Finn back or any other crazy idea you can think up. I am doing this because Rachel and I are now friends."

With that she raised an eyebrow in a way that said _"Do I make myself clear?" _Santana huffed and looked angry as hell but she stayed quiet and went back to picking at her food.

"Oh Q I'm so happy that you don't want to make Rachel sad. I told Sanny that you weren't being mean but she didn't believe me so thank you for making me be right again." Brittany exclaimed happily and smiled toothily at her friend.

Quinn smiled back at her happily and said, "Me too. So anyway tell me about how you became friends with Rach."

Brittany opened her mouth to start the story but it seemed the odds were against her as a voice once again cut her off, "Hello friends, I'm back so you can all stop talking about me now!"

Rachel sounded too cheerful to actually be happy so Quinn looked up with concern and she noticed almost immediately that Rachel's smile was forced and didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Hey you okay?" she asked carefully.

"What? Yes of course I am. Finn simply wanted to apologise for the way he had behaved yesterday. He says to say sorry to you too, but I of course told him that he needs to tell you that himself as I am not his messenger, so if you get a mumbled sorry from him then that's why!" Rachel replied brightly as she sat down.

"Right okay, so where is Finn now?" Quinn asked, still trying to find out why Rachel seemed down.

"Oh he's with his football friends. He said he wants to eat with them today but he took time out to apologise to me before hand."

And there it was. She should have known really, it was always Finn. Even when he didn't realise it he was always hurting Rachel one way or another. Quinn couldn't understand how anyone in their right mind would choose to hang out with some meat head idiots if they had the choice of being with Rachel. Especially if that time included kissing and making out and well she should probably stop those thoughts before they went too far.

"Wow Berry you sure do got yourself a catch there don't ya?" Santana exclaimed over dramatically.

"While I am aware that you are being sarcastic, I am not entirely aware why as I do believe that yes I have 'got myself a catch'!" Rachel replied using air quotes which Santana rolled her eyes at.

"Oh please Mr oops I did it again is hardly a catch and if you truly, like truly truly believe that he is…well then you're even more pathetic than I originally thought. And trust me, that's saying something."

"Mr oops I did it again? Santana I really have got to tell you that your insults rarely work because more than half of the time I have no idea what you're talking about." Rachel began saying before she continued, "However, it is obvious you think Finn is not a good boyfriend and so please do tell why you feel this way."

"Really? You want me to name all the ways in which Finnocence is a gawd awful boyfriend?" the taller girl asked sceptically.

"Well no, not all of the reasons because knowing you and your need to point out every little flaw in someone we would be here until the end of school and I would rather not miss any classes."

Santana rolled her eyes again and said, "Fine, I'll just mention the one flaw you basically pointed out a few minutes ago."

Rachel sighed deeply and said, "Okay. Tell me what it is that makes Finn such a horrible boyfriend?"

"So you say that he hurt you yesterday, yes?" she asked but continued before the other girl could answer, "And then instead of taking time to apologise and make it up to you and show you how truly awful he felt about it…he simply drags you away while you're eating your lunch, takes two minutes to say "sorry for like you know whatever I did oh and also say sorry to your friend cause I'm too lazy to do it myself" and then he goes off with his friends, rather than spend time with you, his girlfriend."

Brittany had been nodding along with Santana at this and shrugged at Rachel as if to say "_she has a point" _when Rachel looked at her.

"Well you're wrong Santana. He is a good boyfriend and at least he said sorry, at least he felt remorse and he came to me to try and make it up. No one is perfect Santana, even though you may think you are. He is a good boyfriend okay?" Rachel fumed at Santana and then huffed when she saw that the girl was simply smirking at her with an "_I really don't care, he's awful" _look.

Rachel turned to Quinn for help but Quinn simply put up her hands and shook her head refusing to get involved, and gave her an apologetic smile when she glared at her. "I can't believe you wouldn't stick up for me Quinn!" she exclaimed.

"I would stick up for you…but I'm not going to stick up for Frank…uhh Finn. Sorry Rach but I actually agree with S. And B." Quinn replied shrugging once again.

Rachel gaped at her, then said, "Well, while I do not enjoy the fact that my friends do not seem to approve of my boyfriend, I refuse to make a big deal out of it. I can accept that we have differing opinions on this matter and we shall simply leave it at that."

"Yeah I aint promising nothing Berry. If I gots to hang out with you more often then Imma have to deal with the torture somehow. And the way I deal is to make fun, so expect a whole load of disses from me about Finn…and you obviously."

"That's fine Santana. I wasn't really addressing you anyway as I am well aware that you are incapable of going two seconds without hurling an insult out of your mouth," the brunette stated.

"Sorry Rachey but you know I don't like lying so…if I have a bad thought about Finn I'm going to say it. It's not bad thoughts about you though Rachey!" Brittany added in, smiling at Rachel who I turn sighed and smiled back.

"Yes I know Britts. And I fully understand that with you it isn't about being mean but simply being honest and truthful as you always are."

"Uhh that applies to me also," Quinn added in quickly, just so Rachel would know that no she wasn't going to sit around and keep her opinions about Finn to herself but that it wasn't about being mean either.

"What? No Quinn. No, you need to be supportive okay? If you don't like our relationship for…whatever reasons then you keep them to yourself okay?" Rachel didn't say it in a mean way, more like a pleading way and so Quinn locked eyes with her for a long moment before she sighed deeply and mumbled out a "fine".

"Good because I need at least one of my closest friends to support my decisions and to not make me doubt…things or well good." Rachel ended up rambling at the end which made Quinn raise an eyebrow at her.

But Rachel wasn't looking at Quinn. She was staring at her meal and seemed deep in thought. Quinn thought she looked sad and she hated it. She absolutely hated seeing Rachel like this and what was worse was the thought that she made her feel this way.

"Hey Rach what you thinking?" she asked gingerly.

Rachel looked up and smiled slightly at her, "Nothing I'm okay. Just thinking you know. I'm forever in my head…you'll get used to it over time."

She then looked somewhere passed Quinn and smiled brighter and waved slightly to someone. Quinn looked behind her and saw Puck smirking back at Rachel.

What the hell was Puck doing smirking at Rachel? And why did he make Rachel smile like that? Quinn didn't like this one bit. First they were sitting together in Glee and now they are sharing looks over the cafeteria? What the fuck?

"Wassup ladies?" he had obviously made his way over and decided to join them. _How fucking awesome_ Quinn thought.

"Hello Noah," Rachel smiled up at him.

"Hi Puck!" Brittany greeted cheerily.

Santana simply nodded at him which he seemed to accept easily enough.

"What do you want Puck?" Quinn demanded, a little too harshly. Puck looked slightly hurt but then he shrugged.

Just thought I would chill out with my fine babes," he said and winked at Rachel who giggled slightly and hit his arm playfully. Which of course made Quinn's blood boil. Rachel and Finn she could just about deal with because it was to be expected; they were going out. But Rachel and Puckerman? No, this was not okay.

"Well what makes you think we want you to sit with us?"

Once again Puck looked hurt, but smiled when Rachel said, "Quinn! That is extremely rude. Of course we would love for Noah to sit with us!"

With Rachel's consent Puck sat down, so he was facing Rachel and smiled at her brightly.

"So you guys coming to the party?" he asked as he stuffed his mouth with at least 10 fries.

Quinn fought the urge to gag and Santana replied, "What do you think dumbass?"

"Yeah figured you and B were coming, I was really talking to my hot American Jew and my baby mama!" he replied, smirking at both Rachel and Quinn.

Rachel just slapped him playfully again while Quinn glared at him.

"Well I can't speak for Quinn of course but I am of course not attending the party."

"What? Why not babe?" Puck exclaimed.

"For one I was not invited and two parties and I do not mix well together, not that I have that much experience, but the two parties I have been to, I have ended up embarrassing myself vastly. So you can most definitely count me out," she explained to a pouting Puck.

"But Rachey this time you'll have me and Q and Sanny and Puck to look after you so we won't let you embarrass yourself. Right guys?" Brittany said, looking around at everyone to get them to agree with her.

Puck of course nodded straight away, "Yeah course I'll look after you babe. Us hot Jews gotta stick together!"

Santana didn't respond at first but when Brittany nudged her and whispered something in her ear which Rachel could only guess was about, she sighed exaggeratedly and said, "Berry don't be such a loser. We will all be there okay? And yeah I'll like try and make sure you don't end up pole dancing naked or some shit…but I aint promising!"

Rachel looked at the three of them and began to feel her resolve falling away. Finally she said, "Quinn?"

Quinn looked up then. She had been listening to the conversation but hadn't wanted to say anything as she wanted to wait to see what Rachel had decided before she made her decision as to whether to go or not. A party with Rachel sounded like it could be the best night ever, but going to a party that Rachel wasn't going to, well Quinn didn't think she would be bothered about that party really.

"Huh?" she ended up saying.

"Do you think I should go? Also are you going? Cause if you're not going then I'm definitely not going." Rachel said earnestly.

Quinn smiled reflectively at that and said, "Well I'm going so you're going."

Puck pumped his fist in the air and Brittany squealed happily, telling a very bored looking Santana that it was going to be the best party ever, while Quinn and Rachel smiled shyly at each other.

Quinn suddenly thought that Brittany could be right. This could end up being the best party she ever attended!

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><p><strong>Please review. As always I like constructive criticism as well as just nice reviews :)<strong>

**Thanks for reading.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry for posting this so many times, but I only just realized that my way of showing it's a different scene doesn't work! I was putting 3 stars in the center of the page to show that it was the end of that scene and we were going to a different one. But it turns out that it wasn't working so I had to find one that did, and the only one that would work is the full line! So yeah sorry about all this, I am still learning how to used and all. So please forgive me!**

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><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

It was the day of the party when Puck and Rachel walked into the choir room. Puck smirked at Rachel and asked, "You looking forward to the awesome that is going to be my party?"

Rachel smiled at him slightly and then frowned before saying, "Uhh actually I was thinking that maybe I won't go. I mean it's not really my scene and I know that you and Brittany and Quinn said that you would look after me but I don't know, I just don't really feel like going and I-"

"Wow calm down babe!" Puck interrupted her, "Why don't you feel like going? It's gonna be so fun I swear."

"Noah I'm sure that it will be extremely fun for you and everyone else, but I doubt that I will find it quite as thrilling."

"Why though? Trust me when I say that when you hang with the Puckasauras you are sure to have a pucktastical time!" he smirked and wiggled his eyebrows at her then.

Rachel giggled slightly and lightly hit his arm. It was at this moment that Quinn entered the room. She felt the sting of jealousy that was always there whenever she saw Rachel with…well anyone that wasn't her.

"Hey Rach" she called and went to sit down next to her, forcing Puck out of the seat.

"Alright baby mama!" he said with his usual smirk in place.

She was just about to tell him off when Rachel cut her off, "Noah we have talked about this before. It is not okay to call Quinn by that term. And this is because…" she left the reason hanging, seemingly waiting for Puck to state the reason.

_Yeah, fat chance Puck has any kind of idea why I don't enjoy being called that! _Quinn thought scoffing quietly.

Puck sighed heavily, giving Rachel a pout as if pleading with her to let him off the hook.

"Because it is not only offensive to women but to Quinn as a person as it reduces her to being the mother of my child and nothing else. Furthermore, Quinn almost certainly does not appreciate the term as it brings back a lot of painful memories she may not be okay with remembering every time I say hello," Puck muttered quietly, simultaneously stunning Quinn and pleasing Rachel.

"Well done Noah. Now what do you need to do?" Rachel asked him.

"Come on Rachel don't do this to me, you're practically cutting off my balls with all this!" he whined.

"I am not taking away your manhood in any way, in fact I am helping you gain more maturity and we all know that the…uh ladies love a more mature man" Rachel said, stuttering and blushing slightly near the end.

"Really? Chicks dig the whole nice guy thing?" Puck asked, clearly surprised, "I thought they loved the whole bad guy image I had going on."

"Well some may enjoy that, but the kind of girl you deserve will be much more appreciative of the sentimental thing. Trust me," she said, smiling at him. "But that's not the reason you are going doing this. You are doing this because you are actually a good person and I'm just helping you find it in you. Yes?"

Puck looked a little unsure, but when he looked at Rachel and saw her give him a small but sincere smile he smiled back and said, "Yeah totally!"

Then he turned to look at Quinn, who had been watching this whole exchange with a dumbfound expression on her face.

"Q I'm really…uhh I'm sorry for like you know. Calling you 'baby mama' and any other uhh dregotary names. I uhh yeah I'm sorry Quinn."

There was a tense moment of silence before Quinn said, "It's derogatory not dregotary!"

"Oh. Umm shit sorry…does this like mean that you don't accept my apology? Cause I know it seems that maybe I was just doing it cause Rachel said I had to and all but Q I swear it's for real okay and-"

"Shut up!" Quinn interrupted him, but she was smiling as she did so, "I accept your apology okay? Just stop talking. You're getting as bad as Rachel with all the rambling"

Puck let out a huge sigh of relief and smiled toothily back at Quinn.

Rachel beamed at both of them, ignoring the joking jab at her. She was just pleased that they seemed to be doing okay. Or at least better than they had been for a long time.

"So, what were you two talking about?" Quinn asked, half out of simple interest and half out of jealousy.

"Rachel is bailing on us" Puck said.

"Huh? How is she bailing on us?" Quinn asked clearly confused.

"She says she aint coming to my party. And don't even try and convince her cause I already used all my moves. I told her it would be so awesome and fun and she knows that we'll look after her and everything. She's just being a spoilsport" he replied, shooting Rachel a playful glare.

"What?" Quinn exclaimed, "How can you not be going?"

"Quinn I'm sorry, I just don't really wanna go. I know I said I would but I've been thinking about it for a few days now and I have come to this decision okay?" Rachel stated, obviously adamant on not being talked out of this.

"Look Rachel, if you really honestly don't wanna go then don't. There is no way I'm going to force you okay?" Quinn gave her a pointed look, making sure Rachel understood this, "but I really want you to come. I don't wanna go without you. You promised you would keep me company and so if you're not going then I really don't wanna go either."

"Quinn!" Rachel exclaimed, "No, you can't do that. You should go, have fun. Don't let me take you way a from a good night out!"

"But that's the thing Rach, it won't be fun unless you're there."

Rachel was left blushing profusely at that comment. She ducked her head down, making her hair curtain her now red face.

She looked up to see Quinn giving her a smile, sweet smile. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yes fine. As in fine I'll go!"

"Yeah?"

"I said so didn't I? Don't make me change my mind Fabray."

"I wouldn't dream of it Berry!"

"Hells yes!" Puck joined in with the celebrating, "This party is gonna be-"

"Pucktastical!" the two girls laughed out simultaneously, making them both giggle and Puck smirk happily.

Santana and Brittany walked in then, pinkies linked as usual.

"What's got everyone so fucking joyous in here?" Santana asked them with a frown.

"I just convinced Rachel to come to the party!" Puck grinned.

"No you didn't, I did," Quinn made sure to remind him.

"But why are you celebrating now?" Brittany asked, her face scrunched up in confusion, "Rachey said she was coming like three days ago!"

"Also are seriously telling me that Berry agreeing to come to a party is reason for you both to look like you just had surprise birthday sex or some shit?" Santana added on.

Quinn rolled her eyes at Santana and turned to explain to Brittany, "Yeah but she said she had changed her mind, so I convinced to her to change it back and now she is coming again!"

"Oh" Brittany said when she understood, "Oh okay well then yay!" she exclaimed, smiling brightly and hugging Rachel hard.

This time it was Santana who rolled her eyes. She went and grabbed Brittany from Rachel's grasp and glared at the petite girl, making her cower slightly.

"Come on B let's sit down all the way over there"

"Aww but San I wanna sit with Rachey" Brittany pouted.

"You can't" she replied.

Brittany pulled her hand away from Santana and pouted even harder, a hurt look on her face.

"No Britt I didn't mean it like that. I'm not saying that I'm like not allowing you to sit with her babe I swear. It's just that Rachel always sits with Quinn on one side and Finn on the left. You know that as well B. I promise you I wasn't saying you couldn't in a mean way. Babe please believe me," Santana rambled, fear evident on her face. She hated hurting Brittany more than anything in the world and it was always her biggest fear that she would hurt her so much that she would eventually push her away. She had almost done it once, back when she refused to sing with her and that resulted in Brittany dating Stubbles McCripple Pants and not talking to her for ages. She refused to let that happen again.

Brittany watched her with a growing smile and when she finally stopped talking Brittany just hugged her. She didn't say anything, just held her tight. As if she were silently reassuring Santana that she wasn't going anywhere. That she wasn't mad and that Santana had no reason to be scared. Santana, seemingly understanding the meaning behind the comforting embrace, relaxed and sighed in relief.

"Come on B we can sit behind Rachel okay?" Santana asked when she finally pulled away from the blonde.

Brittany smiled, and pulled Santana to the seat behind Rachel and Quinn, "Of course it's okay."

They were all talking amongst each other as the other members of New Directions began trickling in. Finn was one of the last to enter, and he went straight to the seat next to Rachel kissing her on the cheek as he did so.

"Hey babe" he said.

"Hi" she cooed back happily.

Rachel leaned into Finn, and he put his arm around her. They were both smiling contently, whereas Quinn was forcing herself to look away, not wanting to let anyone see how much their happiness was getting to her.

"Oh I forgot to tell you" Finn started to say, "We can't hang out tonight. Sorry."

Rachel sat up straight and looked at him with a frown. "We didn't have any plans for tonight anyway."

"Oh I thought we did. Weren't we supposed to be going to that French place?" he asked with his face scrunched up in thought.

"That's tomorrow night Finn. And it's Italian," Rachel replied trying to keep herself from sighing.

"Oh well that's good then cause I wouldn't be able to have gone if it were tonight." He said smiling at her.

"Wait, so if our plans were for tonight then you would have ditched them for some party?" she asked, trying hard to make sure she didn't raise her voice.

"Well it's gonna be like really awesome. Puck said that there's gonna be…wait how did you know I was going to a party?" he asked with what seemed to be accusation in his voice.

She rolled her eyes at his tone, knowing what he was getting at. "It's not like I was watching your every move and stalking you. Puck told me that you were going when he was trying to convince me to go."

"Puck invited you?" he asked, clearly surprised.

Rachel glared at him but he didn't seem to understand why she was upset so she bit out "Yes, why does that surprise you so much?"

"Uhhh it doesn't?" he said questioningly.

His girlfriend huffed loudly. "Whatever Finn. It doesn't matter why he invited me or whether or not it shocks you that I was invited at all to an actual party. The fact is that it happened and that I said yes."

"You said yes?" his eyes wide as he asked this.

Once again Rachel glared at him. "Uhh I mean you said yes? That's so cool!"

Rolling her eyes she smiled at him tightly and said "Yes. It is cool."

"So uhh like do you want me to pick you up?" he asked, trying to make her stop scowling.

Rachel scowled for a while longer before sighing and muttering, "Yes that would be nice. Thank you"

A voice from behind then suddenly said, "Aww but I wanted to go with you Rachey!"

Rachel turned around and frowned in confusion, "What do you mean Britts?"

"I wanted to go to the party with you, but now you're going with Finn," Brittany explained sadly. She turned to Santana and pouted hard.

Santana looked between the sad blonde and Rachel, seemingly torn between two options. Finally she growled and bit out, "Berry you're coming with us to the party. Finnocence don't bother picking her up."

Finn glowered at her and said, "Who are you to tell me what to do with my own girlfriend? And do you really think I would trust you with her?"

The Latina rolled her eyes, she really didn't want to get into all this bullshit but if Brittany wanted to go to the party with Rachel then she would go to the damn party with Brittany.

"Look here green giant I said that Rachel is coming with us and so she is coming with us. Also if you don't want people getting all up in your business then don't air your dirty laundry in public, it's not like we wanna be smelling your wet panties…Finn"

"Fuck you Santana," he spit at her.

The girl simply smirked and turned to Rachel, "So Berry we're gonna meet at half four to get ready, then leave for the party at like 7. But trust me when I say that if you do one single thing to piss me off then you're out, even if we're on the way to the party. I **will **throw you out of the car. Got it?"

The petite brunette looked at her dumbly, not saying anything.

"Berry!" she shouted. "Oh for fucks sake. Berry!"

Finally Rachel blinked at looked straight at Santana. She shook her head slightly and when she seemed to come to her senses she said, "Uhh thank you very much for your offer Santana but I really think I would prefer to go to the party with Finn than uhh with, with you."

This time it was Finn who smirked happily at Santana, throwing a possessive arm around Rachel.

"Berry I swear to god if you don-"

"Sanny?" Brittany cut her off.

"Yeah B?" she asked, her tone completely changed.

"Shush."

"Wha?" the Cheerio gaped at her.

"I said shush. As in be quiet!" Brittany said, smiling toothily at her. She knew Santana wouldn't like being told to be quiet, but she also knew that she wouldn't be mad at her either so she wasn't worried.

She turned to Rachel, leaning forward to hug her slightly. "Rachey why won't you come with us to the party?" she asked.

Rachel stuttered, not quite knowing what excuse to give. Everybody knew that you didn't hurt Brittany, not only because of her extremely fierce and protective best friend but because she was Brittany, a sweet and innocent girl who didn't deserve a single mean thing to be done to her.

"Well it's just that Finn is my boyfriend and I would love to spend as much time with him as possible" she tried.

"Yeah but you said you're gonna go out with him on Saturday right? And also you're still gonna be with Finn at the party, it's just the bit before that we want you to be with us for."

Rachel thought about what the blonde had just said, seeing that she had a good point. Plus it wasn't as if Rachel didn't want to go with Brittany. She just wasn't too sure about the Santana part of it. She knew that just because Brittany was her friend again and Quinn was suddenly being nice to her, it didn't mean that Santana had stopped wanting to hurt her.

Finally she sighed, and then looked over at Quinn. If she was going to spend over an hour with Santana then she needed more than Brittany to protect her and so she knew that she would, no could, only go if Quinn was there as well.

"Quinn?" she asked.

"Yeah Rachel?" Quinn had been listening to the conversation and had silently been begging for Rachel to agree. Santana, Brittany and she had always got ready for parties together and so she knew that was the plan for tonight. So if Rachel agreed to go to the party with Britt and San then she would be going with Quinn as well and as of this moment, there was nothing Quinn wanted more.

"Well uhh I was just wondering if you're going to be travelling to the party with Britts and Santana. As much as I would love to accompany them I feel as though maybe I would be the third wheel so to speak and perhaps wouldn't enjoy that very much. Therefore I was hoping that you would be going as well so that no one would be a third wheel or feel left out," Rachel said awkwardly, cheeks taking on a slightly pink colour.

Quinn grinned and had to bite her lip from giggling. _Oh god she is so adorable_ she thought to herself.

"Yeah I'm going. We always go together so I'm guessing this time is no different," she said, quickly glancing at Santana who nodded slightly to show her she was correct with that assumption.

"Oh yay!" Rachel squealed, "Well in that case I would love to go to the party with you three ladies!"

Brittany laughed happily and hugged Rachel properly, while Quinn grinned widely at her, eyes shining with happiness.

"Uhh what about me?" Finn called out.

"What about you?" Brittany asked, not a trace of meanness in her voice.

"Well what about what I think? What if I'm not okay with Rach going with you three? Which by the way I'm really not.

"And how is what you think any importance?" Quinn questioned.

"Oh I don't know maybe cause I'm her boyfriend Quinn!" he practically shouted at her.

"Yeah boyfriend, not owner. Just cause you're dating her doesn't mean you get to say what she can and can't do," she shot back.

Finn seethed in anger as he tried to think up a comeback. Rachel could sense he was about to lose it with Quinn and so she gingerly touched his shoulder, massaging him slightly. "Finn?"

"What?" he snapped at her.

"Finn calm down please? I know you don't think you own me okay? I know that and so I'm not mad, and you don't need to be either."

"Yeah but I don't like that bitch telling me what to do" he muttered grumpily.

"Finn Hudson don't you dare call Quinn, or anyone for that matter, a bitch do you understand me?" Rachel ground at, Finn's grumpiness momentarily forgotten.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"As for Quinn telling you what to do, I don't think those were her intentions. She is just being a good friend to me, and what good friends do is ensure that their friends' boyfriends are treating them well…not that you were treating me badly. She was just making sure of it, that's all okay? She's just trying to be a good friend," Rachel explained, though she knew she wasn't necessarily telling the truth. Quinn definitely had a problem with Finn. She would have thought that Quinn was constantly insulting Finn and pointing out his bad points because she wanted Rachel to dump him so that she could have him all to herself, if it weren't for the fact that Rachel felt she knew Quinn now and she knew that Quinn would never do that to her. Also she somehow highly doubted she felt anything for Finn anymore, the insults were just too good to be made up. The question still remained why Quinn hated Finn so much.

Rachel shook herself out of her thoughts, telling herself that she could ponder on this another time. Right now she had to make sure her boyfriend wasn't still about to lose his temper and break up with her, or quite Glee or kick a chair or something. At that thought she snickered lightly, Finn sure was a drama queen, and that was coming from Rachel Barbra Berry!

"Are you laughing at me?" Finn snapped at her.

"What? No, no I promise I wasn't. I uhh…I just had a funny image in my head. Sorry," she quickly explained praying that he wasn't going to make a big deal out of this and claim that she was doing all of this to hurt him.

"Oh. Yeah that happens to me a lot," he said, his expression turning into one deep in thought, "like I remember once I couldn't get this image of a baboon farting out of my head for like a whole week!" he laughed.

Rachel raised her eyebrows, smiling tightly at him. _Wow okay!_ she thought, internally rolling her eyes at her supposedly high school boyfriend.

Finn suddenly started laughing loudly. He clutched at his stomach and his whole body shook as he hooted.

Quinn looked at him with disbelief. Why was Rachel dating this oaf? Why had she dated him? The thought alone made her shiver in disgust and self-loathing. She looked over at Rachel who was wearing an expression that Quinn guessed mirrored hers.

She caught her eye and cocked an eyebrow as if asking "_Really? Him?_"

Rachel smiled and shook her head at Quinn mouthing, "Shut up!"

Quinn smiled back at her and held her hands up in surrender making Rachel laugh, which in turn made Quinn beam with happiness.

* * *

><p>Rachel wearily watched from afar at Quinn and Santana arguing. They had being going at it since Glee ended, which was 22 minutes ago. Rachel knew they were arguing about her, not only because she was a little bit psychic but because they kept looking over at her every few minutes.<p>

Just as Rachel was about to demand what they were getting all worked up about Quinn threw her hands up in the air, in question or annoyance Rachel couldn't tell but it made the argument come to a stop as Santana smiled and nodded her head in agreement to whatever it was that Quinn had said.

Rachel quickly looked away from the two as Quinn started walking towards her. The scowl on her face leaving, to be replaced with a genuine smile.

"Hey so we're gonna get ready at B's house okay?" she asked when she reached the brunette.

"Yes that is fine," Rachel replied. "Uhh is that what you and Santana were…discussing just now?"

Quinn hesitated a moment, looking over at Santana and then back at Rachel, "Yeah it was. It's just that, you know how I said us three always get ready for parties together? Well we've always done that at Santana's house, but umm she wasn't exactly okay with that being the case this time."

Rachel was confused for a second, before understanding what Quinn was saying. She looked down at her feet, trying to force away the hurt that this caused. She shouldn't be hurt by this, she shouldn't even be surprised. Santana hates her and the only reason she is even putting up with her is because of Brittany. However, Rachel can't help being affected by the revelation that Santana hates her so much she won't even allow her to set foot in her house.

"Hey Rachel it's not like that," Quinn says, bringing her out of her miserable, self-loathing thoughts.

"It's okay Quinn. I get it, she hates me," she replies sadly.

"Rachel she doesn't hate you. Yeah she may not be your biggest fan but if she hated you she would never have agreed to let you join us tonight. Even Brittany couldn't make her agree to letting someone she hates to tag along with us," the blonde said, forcing Rachel to look at her as she talked.

Again Quinn hesitated before continuing, "The reason she wasn't okay with you going to her house is because she is a private person. She…she doesn't let anyone in her house except for me and Britt of course. I guess you could say she had trust issues or something, but the point is that this isn't about you, it's about her okay?"

She looked intensely at Rachel, praying that the girl would believe her. She knew that Rachel had low self-esteem and so she knew that this was probably affecting her more than she let on and Quinn didn't want that. She hated the thought of Rachel feeling like she wasn't good enough and so she needed Rachel to know that this was Santana's issue and not Rachel's. It had nothing to do with Rachel at all.

Quinn was about to continue trying to convince Rachel of this when Rachel sighed and spoke at last, "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes okay. I believe you and I'm not upset. I get it, I get that Santana is a private person and I can very easily believe that she wouldn't let just anyone in her house."

"Okay good, I'm glad you believe me because it really isn't about you it's-"

"Yes I know, you've said so already!" Rachel cut her off smiling. "Thank you for explaining it to me though."

Quinn simply smiled in reply.

"So anyway, we're all gonna go home and grab some stuff and then head to Brittany's. I'll text you in the address okay?" Quinn told her.

"Oh don't bother, I know Britts' address. I used to go over there all the time. If I wasn't at her house then she was at mine!" Rachel explained, a far-away look in her eyes and a slight smile on her lips.

"Oh yeah. I keep forgetting that you and Britt were close friends, it's quite weird to be honest!" Quinn joked.

"Yeah I guess so," Rachel replied with a hint of sadness in her voice. But before Quinn could comment on it Rachel was smiling and exclaiming, "Oh I am so very excited for this party. I mean of course I am worried as it is my first party, excluding the one held at my own house but that was totally different! Despite the fact that I am extremely nervous about it all, as you can probably tell, I am still very excited and I-"

Rachel suddenly stopped talking, a horrified expression on her face.

"What's wrong? Rachel?" Quinn asked, utterly confused and slightly worried. Rachel's face had drained of colour and it was making Quinn very anxious.

"I, I don't have anything to wear!" Rachel exclaimed. "I'm going to a party and I have nothing to wear! What was I thinking? Of course I can't go to a party, this is a disaster! Who agrees to go to a party when they know they have absolutely nothing to wear that would be acceptable at a high school party?"

"Wow Rachel calm down!" Quinn practically had to shout at her, in order for her to be heard and for Rachel to stop freaking out.

"Calm down? Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down Quinn? Didn't you hear me? I have nothing to wear!" she shrieked.

"Yes I heard you Rachel, but it will be okay. You're getting ready with me and those two," she pointed over at Brittany and Santana who had stopped talking and were now watching with curious eyes at Rachel and Quinn.

"What's your point Quinn?" Rachel asked, obviously still freaking out internally.

"My point is that we'll have something for you to wear. We almost never wear our own clothes to a party. We all bring clothes and then we choose from the massive pile what we want to wear, regardless of who it actually belongs to," Quinn explained.

"But I don't have anything to bring to add to the clothes pile," Rachel pointed out sadly.

"That's okay Rachel. No one will mind at all," Quinn reassured her.

"You promise?" she asked, still unsure.

"Yes."

"You have to say it for me to believe you," the diva said.

"I promise," Quinn stated.

Rachel sighed in relief "Okay, but if Santana throws me out of Brittany's house then it's your fault!" Rachel said, only half joking.

Quinn laughed and said "That's fair, but trust me when I say that won't happen. Brittany would never let her do that!"

The brunette smiled and nodded in agreement making a whipping noise and gesture, which of course sent Quinn into a fit of giggles.

* * *

><p>Rachel had been standing at Brittany's front door for at least 5 minutes. Sure Quinn had managed to calm her down but her dads had shot all Quinn's hard work out the window.<p>

"_Bye dad!" Rachel called out to her father Hiram._

"_Where are you off to baby girl?" her father inquired._

"_Oh just out to a friend's house," she quickly said, not wanting to get into a conversation about this._

"_I thought Kurt was in Toledo. Didn't he go there to watch some movie he had been dying to see but wasn't being shown in Lima? And didn't he take Mercedes with him?" he asked, clearly bemused._

"_Yeah he did, but I uhh I'm not going to Kurt's," she said, silently begging him not to push this. She wasn't sure why, but she really didn't want her fathers to find out that she was going to Brittany's house and that she would be with Quinn and Santana. And she definitely didn't want him to know that she was going to a party._

"_So whose house are you going to?" turns out her prayers had gone unanswered._

"_Dad" she whined "Do you really have to know?"_

"_Well I was just curious, but now that you are seemingly so against me knowing I think that yes I do have to know," he stated, getting up and walking towards her._

_They stared at each other for a long tense moment until Rachel gave up. "Fine, if you have to know then I'm going to uhh to Britts' house."_

"_Brittany?" he asked shocked "As in Brittany Pierce, former best friend who you were joined at the hip with?"_

"_We were not joined at the hip but yes that Brittany."_

"_Oh wow well that's nice. You two haven't hung out in a very long time…what ever happened to you two? Your daddy and I always wondered why she suddenly stopped coming round," her dad pondered._

"_Umm yeah, we just kind of drifted apart, but we're sort of friends again now," she said quickly and then added "Anyway I gotta go, I'll be late if I don't go now and Santana won't be happy with that!"_

_As soon as she said it she cringed. All she could do is hope her father hadn't heard her and she would be able to escape without further interrogation._

"_Santana?" Hiram screeched. Clearly God wasn't on her side here._

"_Uhh well yeah I was gonna say…I'm going to Brittany's house and well Santana is going to be there as well," she timidly said._

"_Santana? You are willingly going to hang out with Santana Lopez?" he asked disbelievingly. _

"_Dad please don't be mad. She won't do anything, Brittany will be there and she won't let anything happen and neither will Qui-" she stopped short. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she keep anything in? At times like this she hated her tendency to ramble and produce word vomit._

"_Please, please tell me that you were not about to say Quinn," he almost whispers._

_Rachel looks at her dad, not being able to find a single thing to say. She knows why her dad is reacting like this. She understands and she doesn't blame him in the slightest. But it doesn't mean that she likes it._

_Finally she takes a few steps closer so that she is directly in front of her dad. She looks at him pleadingly and says "Dad I know that you're upset and I get why. I truly do dad but please just let me explain."_

_He looks at her wearily and then nods his head slightly, telling her to do so._

"_At the beginning of this year Quinn came up to me and attempted to start a real friendship with me. I was hesitant but I agreed because I was taught that people deserve second chances. And dad it was worth it because she is proving to be a great friend. I know you don't like it but please just accept it. Please," she was practically begging now. She knew that even if he didn't accept it she wouldn't ed her friendship with Quinn, but that didn't mean that she didn't want his acceptance._

"_Rachel sweetheart I'm sorry but I don't think I can. I am so very proud of you, that you are the kind of person who can forgive those who hurt who and you are willing to give them second chance. But baby girl this is too much. You can't be friends with not one, but two people who made your life a living hell for so long. It's not healthy and in my opinion it's not okay," he softly told her._

_Rachel wiped the tears falling down her face and blinked hard against the new ones forming._

"_Baby girl please don't cry," her father said desperately._

"_I'm trying!" she exclaimed._

_Hiram smiled at her daughter, he loved her more than he ever thought it was possible to love another human being and it was because of that love that he was not okay with her being friends with those two Cheerios. She had come home crying too many nights, she had too many clothes ruined, too much self-worth destroyed for him to be fine with this. But he also knew that Rachel was a big girl and she could make her own decisions, he was just worried about her._

"_I'm just worried about you" he voiced his thoughts to her._

"_I know dad. I know and I'm sorry for making you feel worried but I'll be okay."_

"_How do you know that though angel? How do you know this isn't some kind of set up just to hurt you even more?" he asked, trying to get her to see that things may not be as they seem. He wasn't doing this to hurt her, but to try and protect her._

"_I don't know what to say or how to explain it dad but I just know that it isn't. Quinn has changed and she hasn't done anything to make me doubt her since we became friends."_

_Her father sighed heavily. He was not in any way okay with his, in fact he hated it but he knew that he couldn't dictate his daughter's life and he had to let her make her own mistakes. "Okay baby girl. Okay."_

"_Thank you dad. I promise that I'll be okay and that I'm right!" Rachel stated._

"_Of course, because Rachel Barbra Berry is never wrong!" he laughed._

"_Precisely!" she said, holding her head high jokingly._

_Hiram looked at his daughter lovingly before suddenly enveloping her in a hug. Rachel hugged him back lovingly. They held each other for a while, and then Rachel pulled back smiling at him. "Okay well I better be going. I'll see you later tonight okay?"_

"_Okay sweetie. Have…fun!" he replied walking her to the door._

She had defended Quinn to her father, and she truly meant what she had said but she couldn't help feeling unsure now as she stood at her old best friend's front door. The front door of a house that currently had two of her worst bullies inside. _They __**were**__ your bullies but they aren't anymore Rachel. Quinn is your friend, she isn't going to hurt you. She is your friend._

With that thought she knocked on the door and waited.

The door opened a few seconds later, "Rachey!" a mess of blonde hair and long limbs engulfed her suddenly, pulling her into the house before Rachel could even catch her breath.

"Hey Britts" she replied once she had been set free.

"I'm so glad you're here. The house has missed you. So has Lord Tubbington. And my parents. They say hi by the way. They aren't here though so you won't see them," Brittany talked away and they climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

There she found Santana and Quinn dancing around in their towels. Rachel stood with her mouth agape and eyes wide.

When Quinn turned and caught sight of Rachel she almost dropped her towel, only just managing to keep it covering her naked body. This made Quinn and Rachel both turn a dark shade of red and Quinn spluttered out an incoherent apology as she dashed into the bathroom.

Santana looked on with a puzzled look, but didn't think too much about it, Quinn had always been insecure about her body which was mental considering she had a banging body. Almost as hot as hers, but not nearly as hot as Brittany's!

"Sup Berry!" she called out to Rachel who was still blushing deeply, "We didn't even hear you come in. How come you're so late? I thought I told you not to do anything to piss me off?"

"Uhh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be late…obviously, no one ever tries to be late but I mean I really didn't mean to piss you off Santana and I just-"

Santana's loud laugh stopped Rachel in the middle of her rambling. She frowned at the Latina who was now doubling over in laughter.

"San don't be mean," Brittany chastised her, "She was just kidding Rachey!"

"Oh umm okay."

Silence filled the room, which made Rachel uncomfortable. She hated silences, she found them to be extremely awkward and the only people she was okay with being silent with were her dads. Anyone else and she became agitated and felt the need to fill the silence with anything; singing, talking, even silly noises sometimes!

She was about to start talking about the weather of all things when Quinn came back in from the bathroom, now dressed in a big t-shirt and some sweatpants.

"Hi Rachel…uhh sorry about before, you just kind of caught me off guard," she said, not looking at Rachel but choosing to look down at her feet in embarrassment.

"It's okay, it's my fault for not knocking or umm announced my presence or something!" the brunette replied smiling at Quinn slightly, hoping that the awkwardness was going to dissipate soon.

"Well now that that weirdness is all over, let's get this pre-party started!" Santana shouted, pulling out a bag.

"What's in there?" Rachel asked curiously, not entirely sure if she wanted to know.

"Oh just a bottle of vodka and few cans of red bull!" she said nonchalantly.

"What?" the diva gaped at her.

Santana looked at her curiously and the rolled her eyes, "Oh come on Barbra don't tell me you're surprised that I have alchohol."

"Well I guess I'm not entirely surprised. I was fully expecting there to be alcohol at the party, but I wasn't expecting there to be some here. Why would we want to drink when all we are doing is getting ready?" she asked, confused.

"Oh you sweet innocent baby" Santana laughed at her.

Apparently that was all the explanation she was going to get because Santana had poured them all a mixed drink and was drinking hers already.

Quinn noticed Rachel's hesitancy so she walked over to her and placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

Rachel turned around and looked at Quinn with doubt.

"You don't have to drink anything Rachel. I'm probably only going to have one drink here and one or two at the party."

Rachel chewed on her lip and said, "I've only had alcohol once and that was awful. I ended up kissing my best friend's boyfriend. My gay best friend's boyfriend! And hanging on to a boy who had no interest in me at the time. Oh and the morning after was disastrous!"

"Like I said you don't have to-"

"But at the same time I want to drink. I don't necessarily want to get intoxicated, but I want to have a proper high school party experience and that includes drinking at least some alcohol."

"Well okay then. You and I will look after each other okay? We'll only drink when the other drinks and that way we will both be able to get a little tipsy but neither of us will get smashed," Quinn suggested.

"Yeah, yeah that's a fabulous idea. Thank you Quinn!" Rachel sighed in relief and then looked at her drink one last time before taking a big gulp.

Two hours later and they were all already slightly tipsy. Some more than others.

"Quuuuiiiinnn!" Rachel cooed from across the room.

The blonde laughed happily and made her way over to Rachel. "Yes Rachel?"

"Nothing!" she laughed loudly at her 'joke'.

Santana rolled her eyes heavily at them. "How many has Rachel had?"

"Just one, same as me and one less than you!" Quinn replied, shaking her head at the petite girl who was now trying to reach the vodka bottle that had been placed on a high shelf.

"Britts" she whined.

"Yeah Rachey?" the tall blonde replied happily.

"I can't reach the alcohol!" she complained.

"I know," was all Brittany said.

Rachel pouted at her which made Brittany chuckle. "Sweetie we put it there so that you couldn't reach it. You're already very tipsy and it won't be fun for you if you're already drunk before the actual party."

"Oh."

Quinn and Brittany locked eyes and giggled. It seemed they both find drunk Rachel even cuter than sober Rachel.

"Okay bitches we need to get dressed now" Santana stated. "The party has already started and we can't be more than half an hour late."

Their hair and makeup had all been done and all they had to do was put on the dresses they had chosen an hour previously. Rachel's dress wasn't actually a dress at all, in turned out that she was actually smaller than they had all assumed, which made them all, excluding Rachel, laugh in disbelief. So she had ended up wearing one of Brittany's shirts! Brittany said it fit her fine as a dress though, in fact she swore to Quinn and Santana that she looked "smoking hot" in it.

Brittany and Santana immediately took off their clothes and began carefully putting on their dresses. Rachel and Quinn however looked at each other awkwardly.

Rachel finally broke the silence and said "Uhh I'm just gonna change in the bathroom."

Before Quinn could argue, Rachel was closing the bathroom door.

The blonde sighed, deciding it was probably for the best that Rachel wasn't getting half naked in front of as she doubted she would be able to control herself from doing something she would regret later.

A few minutes later Quinn, Santana and Brittany were all talking about who was going to the party as they waited for Rachel to come back from the party. Suddenly Santana stopped talking about "that bitch Stephanie" and stood with her mouth open. Brittany smiled happily and nodded her head to show her agreement to Santana's reaction.

"What's going on?" Quinn asked, turning around to see what they were staring at.

As she turned and caught sight of Rachel who was standing awkwardly in her "dress" she felt her cheeks flame with heat and the air escape her body. She knew Rachel was pretty and hot and sexy, she had seen Rachel in her Brittany Spears costume for fuck sakes. But nothing could have prepared her for the way Rachel looked now. She was…mouth-watering.

"How, how do I look?" Rachel asked timidly, as if their reactions didn't say everything she needed to know.

Brittany was the first to recover, squealing happily as she skipped to Rachel and hugged her tightly before stating "You look so sexy Rachey. If it weren't for San I would totally do you!"

This remark broke Santana out of her trance, but she didn't complain about what the blonde had just declared. Instead she took Rachel by surprise and said "Mmm yeah me too!"

Rachel gaped at her but all Santana did was shrug and say "What? Look Berry, you may be annoying as shit and I may want to hit you in the nose every time you open your mouth, but even I can't deny that you have a fine body and I would definitely tap that. If it weren't for Brittany of course…and you're personality."

The diva blushed furiously before stammering out something that seemed to be "Thank you I guess."

She then turned her attention to Quinn who hadn't moved or changed her expression throughout the whole process. "Quinn?" she asked hesitantly. She wasn't sure why she cared so much what Quinn thought about how she looked, especially as she had just got the second and third best looking girls in school saying that they would "do her", but she did care. She cared a lot.

"Huh?" Quinn asked dumbly.

"How do I look? Is it too short? It's too short isn't it?" Rachel asked, thinking Quinn's silence was a bad sign.

"No!" Quinn practically shouted. "I mean no, no it's fine. It's not too short. And you look uhh you look very nice," she knew she was blushing again and so she turned around and said to the other two, "Well let's go then since we're all ready and Rachel is dressed and is looking very umm…yeah let's go!"

With that she picked up her bag hastily and rushed out the room leaving three confused girls behind.

"What's with her?" Rachel asked, hoping it wasn't her fault that Quinn was suddenly acting very strange.

"Oh don't worry about her, she's just not sure how to deal with it," Brittany stated as if she knew something the other two didn't.

"Huh?" Rachel asked, totally not getting what Brittany was talking about.

But Brittany didn't say anymore, she simply took hold of Rachel's hand and lead her out of the bedroom leaving a curious Santana behind. Santana wasn't dumb and Santana definitely wasn't dumb when it came to Quinn. She was sure she knew what was happening and she was going to get an admittance from Quinn, no matter what.

With that thought in her mind Santana smirked to herself and went to join the other three, ready for the party that was sure to be one to remember.

* * *

><p><strong>Originally I planned to put the party scene in this chapter, but it ended up being a lot longer than I planned so the party will be in the next chapter.<strong>

**Also, the shirt that I had in mind which Rachel was wearing as dress is like this one that Lea wore: .com/tag/lea-michele-wears-shirt-as-a-dress/**


	8. Chapter 8

******I am so sorry for how long it has taken me to update. I do have a good reason though...my laptop broke and I lost all my stuff. Everything. Which means that this chapter, which I had just finished was gone. So I had to write it out all over again (and I only got a new laptop like last week).**

**So yeah, anyway sorry.**

**Also thank you to everyone who has reviewed, added this to their favourites or story alerts and all the rest. It means a lot :)**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

The four girls arrived at the Puckerman residence 10 minutes later. As soon as they entered the house Finn spotted them and came over. Glaring at Quinn and Santana he pulled Rachel away. The girl squealed and turned round to wave quickly at Quinn before willingly going with her boyfriend. Santana said something about getting a drink as she pulled Brittany away with her. That left Quinn by herself. Not even 2 minutes into the party and she was all alone. Sighing, she walked over to the kitchen to grab a drink of what she hoped was just soda. Getting drunk was not on her list of things she wanted at this party, or any party ever for that matter.

Quinn stood by herself, grumpily downing her third drink of the night and watching Rachel as she sat on Finn's lap and laughed loudly at something Puck had just said.

"Hey."

Quinn turned her head slightly to see Sam smiling at her. She sighed heavily and said, "Forget it Sam, I'm not interested."

Confusion took over Sam's face before he laughed loudly, "Oh gosh Quinn!"

"What?" she snapped at him, not enjoying being laughed at.

"I wasn't making a pass at you. I was just saying hi. I was being friendly! I'm not interested either."

"Oh," Quinn muttered.

"Not in a mean way Quinn. You're a beautiful girl and a great person but that ship sailed a long time ago. I know that and it's okay. We just weren't meant to be. I still love you though…as a friend," he said smiling at her warmly.

"Yeah. Umm thanks?"

Sam simply smiled at her again. And she smiled back slightly before turning back to look at Rachel and Finn who were now dancing in the middle of the room with lots of other couples.

A few seconds passed as Sam watched Quinn watch the couple.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah of course," she replied non-committedly.

"You sure? Cause you kinda look jealous," he knew this was a risk. He and Quinn may never have been in love and their relationship may have been based on the need for social popularity, but he knew Quinn and he cared about her. He could tell something was bothering her and so even though he was sure he would get his head ripped off for pushing this, he wasn't going to keep quiet.

Quinn whipped around to glare at Sam. He gulped but didn't back down.

"What?" Quinn spat at him.

"I'm just saying that you keep staring at Finn and Rachel and half the time you have this doe eyed expression and the other half you look like you want to rip somebody's head off."

Quinn said nothing and her glare became less intense. Sam was surprised that she wasn't denying it. He had been pretty sure his assumptions were correct; that she was jealous of what Finn and Rachel had but he didn't expect her to roll over and accept defeat. He had expected her to deny it and storm off.

When Quinn still said nothing and her eyes changed from fiery rage to scared, Sam decided to say more. He didn't like the fear in her eyes and he didn't understand it. Did she really think he was going to say anything? Or did she not believe him when he said he didn't want her anymore and was afraid that she had hurt him. Whatever the reason was for the fear, he wanted it to go.

"Hey it's okay. I meant it when I said I didn't fancy you anymore and I won't tell Finn anything…or Rachel for that matter," he paused, hoping this wouldn't upset her, "but I think you need to at least talk about this with Rachel before you do something. She's a good person and doesn't deserve to be hurt, no matter how you may feel about her."

Quinn's head was spinning. How did Sam know? Was she that obvious? Did everyone know? Were they all laughing at her and how pathetic she was that she actually thought she had a chance with Rachel? She couldn't breathe. She needed air. She needed to be out of here, away from Sam and his knowing words. Away from Rachel's laughter and happiness that Finn was providing her.

Sam watched as Quinn seemed to fall apart, he saw the fear intensify and take her over and it confused him. He thought his words would help, not make it worse.

"Hey Quinn!" he called out, but she didn't react and so he repeated himself, "Hey Quinn!" Again there was no response and so when he called her name for the third time he grabbed hold of her arms at shouted in her face, "Quinn!"

Finally hazel orbs locked with his and he sighed slightly in relief.

"Quinn it's okay. You don't have to talk to Rachel if that's what scares you. Just, I don't know, make sure Finn breaks up with her before you actually do anything with him. Or make Finn talk to Rachel about it. Just do something so that you don't make Rachel go through the hurt that comes along with your partner cheating on you okay?" he said slowly and cautiously, hoping against hope that this wasn't going to make her freak out again. He didn't see how it would, but he was suddenly feeling very unsure about what would and wouldn't upset the blonde.

It took a moment for Sam's words to register in head and when they did she felt confusion mixed with hope and slight disappointment.

"Huh?" was all that she could think of to say.

"I'm just saying that Rachel should know about you liking Finn before anything happens, if anything is going to happen that is."

So Sam didn't know. He hadn't figured it out. Quinn sighed heavily in relief as she felt the grip on her heart loosen and the room stop spinning.

"Oh uhh yeah sure," she said slowly, trying to keep her voice steady and not give off how relieved she was that Sam didn't know her secret.

Sam studied her for a moment, trying to figure out why she suddenly seemed so relieved, but then a loud laugh erupted from across the room and it made Sam look over. He saw Mercedes and Kurt laughing together and he smiled brightly at them.

Quinn watched Sam's face light up and so she looked across the room to see what made him look so happy. She followed his gaze and saw Mercedes and Kurt chuckling about something.

Oh so Sam liked Mercedes! She couldn't say she saw this coming; Sam had never before shown any interest in the girl, but maybe he had been hiding it, or perhaps the feelings were new. It didn't look like the feelings were all that new though, rather it looked as though Sam was in love with her, and that he had been for a while. She decided to ask him about it, rather than guess.

"Oooh looks like Sam likes somebody!" she joked.

The boy tore his gaze from the laughing duo and looked at Quinn, "Huh?"

Quinn chuckled lightly and repeated herself, "I said it looks like you have your eye on someone."

"What? Why would you…what?" he stuttered, his face turning bright red.

Again Quinn chuckled, finding this all too amusing. Sure she had never really liked Sam in that way, but he was really cute, especially now with his face as red as a tomato and his eyes darting around insecurely.

She decided to put him out of his misery, "He dude it's okay. Mercedes is a nice girl and you're a nice guy. I'm sure if you asked, she would love to go on a date with you or something."

Sam stared at her for a few seconds, seemingly trying to digest her words, and then his eyes went wide in realisation. It was rather comical.

"Oh! Mercedes?" he questioned, "Yeah. Oh uhh yeah sure."

Quinn stared at him in confusion and humour, "You alright Sam? You seem kinda…off?"

"Off? No not at all," he tried to say convincingly, "you're right. I should uhh…Mercedes. Yes."

"Yeah okay well maybe when you do actually get round to talking to her you should try being a little more confident and a little less…this!" she said, smiling at him to show she meant it in a nice, helpful way.

"Uhh yeah, of course. Thanks Quinn."

"No problem, that's what friends are for right?" she replied.

Sam smiled at that and sighed happily, "Yeah that's what friends are for."

At that he turned back to watch Mercedes and Kurt who were now dancing about with Tina and Mike. And Quinn went back to watching Rachel enjoying her night with Finn.

Santana felt like her feet were going to fall off and her lungs were giving up on her and so she pulled Brittany closer and placed her mouth right next to the blonde's ear and said, "I'm gonna go get a drink and sit down for a bit. You want anything babe?"

Brittany pulled back and smiled at Santana before shaking her head. Santana smiled back sweetly and then turned around to make her way to the kitchen.

She was sipping at her second glass of water when she caught sight of Quinn standing off to the side, her face contorted in anger. Santana followed Quinn's glare and of course she found Rachel and Finn talking and laughing together.

Enough is enough Santana thought as she gulped down the rest of her drink and marches over to Puck. She said this party was gonna be interesting and Santana Lopez is not the type of person who doesn't stick to her word. On most things anyway.

She also needed to get to the bottom of this thing with Quinn. Sure, the Latina was pretty certain that she knew what was going on but she needed more proof. She needed evidence and so she was going to get it.

"Yo Puckerman!" she hollered to Puck, who was dancing in between two girls and thoroughly enjoying himself.

He heard Santana call his name so he looked over at her, gesturing at the two girls as a way of saying fuck off. Santana simply rolled her eyes and stormed over to the trio.

She stepped in between one of the girls and Puck. The girl stopped dancing and turned around angrily. The anger died instantly when she saw it was Santana Lopez who had come in between her and her dancing partner. She knew not to start any kind of argument with her Cheerleading captain so she smiled slightly and walked away.

Because Puck had stopped dancing the other girl lost interest and walked away too.

"What the fuck Lopez?" he spat angrily at her. He had seriously been hoping to get those two hot cheerleaders in his bed; it had been too long since he had been in the middle of a cheerleader sandwich!

"Shut up Puckerman, I obviously have a reason for talking to you."

Puck smirked at this and stepped in close to Santana, "Is that so babe?"

"Ergh get of off me you pig!" the girl shuddered and pushed Puck off her.

The boy pouted slightly but got over it quickly enough, "So if you don't want in my pants then what do you want?"

"I was thinking that maybe we could have a lil private party of our own downstairs in your basement" Santana replied silkily.

Puck was now confused, "Uhh I thought you said you didn't want in my pants?"

"I didn't mean just you and me squirrel head. I meant all the Glee peeps."

"Oh okay, yeah that sounds epic!" he replied enthusiastically. He loved parties, but if he was being honest he loved hanging out with his Glee friends even more. Not that he would ever admit to that. "I've been wanting to get into the basement with Berry again!"

"Gross."

"Whatever, you're just jealous."

"In your fucking dreams."

"Damn straight!"

"Puckerman I swear to God if you don't shut up right now and help me get all the New Directions people downstairs Imma make sure the only kind of sex you ever have is in your dreams!" Santana spat at him.

Puck smirked at her, but didn't say anything more. Instead he walked over to the music stand.

He cut of the music and stood up on a table. "Listen up fuckers!" he shouted over the grumbling and complaining, "The party is moving downstairs for the Glee peeps. The rest of you can stay up here or go home, I don't give a shit." With that he jumped off the table and turned the music back on and started towards the stairs which led to his basement. He stopped at the top of the stairs and waited for everyone to follow.

People like Sam and Mike were used to this kind of thing they often snuck off with Puck during a party to chill out together downstairs, so they all moved toward the stairs. Puck high fived them both as they passed by him.

Others though seemed to not understand and so they simply stood there. Santana sighed heavily, wondering why she had to always do everything.

She moved towards a large group of people which included Rachel, Finn, Kurt, Mercedes and Brittany.

She stood beside Brittany and addressed the rest of the group, "What are you waiting for bitches? Come on, let's go."

She stared at them all until they finally came to their senses and started walking in the direction of the stairs.

"Good girls!" she cooed at them condescendingly. Finn scowled at her as he passed by, but didn't say anything, knowing that there really wasn't any point.

Santana watched them all go. Puck and Finn helped Artie down the stairs and with that everyone in New Directions but Santana and one other person was in the basement.

Santana looked around for the one other person, the one she needed to be downstairs more than anyone. She spotted her sitting on the kitchen counter, glumly looking at the floor.

Walking over to her she shouted out, "Hey Fabray!"

Quinn looked up, a scowl covering her face. "What?"

"Don't get short with me bitch," Santana snarled, "I was coming to get you, but hey I guess I'll just leave you here to wallow in your sadness."

"Good."

Santana was surprised, she figured that if she was bitchy to the girl then she would get bitchy back and try to prove her wrong by coming down stairs with her. But Santana wasn't known for giving up, so she pushed onwards.

"Okay fine. I guess it's a good thing anyway; we don't want this pathetic, whiny, self-pitying, annoying version of you. We want to have fun and that can't happen with someone like you. God you're even worse than Berry with her boringness. At least she is having fun, guess even she gets a better personality when drunk. You're the only one I know who 's personality actually gets worse when wasted."

Santana stopped there, deciding that she had probably done enough. Sure enough when she looked at Quinn she saw anger in the girl's eyes.

The Latina wasn't sure if it was due to calling Quinn self-pitying and pathetic or the insulting of Berry that did it, but it didn't really matter as it seemed to do the job.

"Is everyone downstairs?" Quinn asked suddenly.

"Yeah, but you're not coming. Like I said, we don't want you," she tried to hide the smirk forming on her lips. She knew that this would be the last straw; this is what would definitely get her to join them downstairs. Quinn hated being told what she could and couldn't do and so Santana knew that if she told her she couldn't come then Quinn would come.

"Like hell I'm not coming," Quinn scoffed, jumping off the counter and striding passed Santana.

Santana smirked and laughed softly. _So predictable._

She followed Quinn down to the basement, a sense of excitement brewing in her.

The music was on, the drinks were being drunk and the floor was full of people dancing. It looked like everyone was having a fun time, but Santana had a much better idea.

She turned the music off and waited calmly until everyone stopped complaining. She wasn't going to strain her voice by shouting above everyone like Puck had done.

"Girl there better be a reason for you turning that off, that's my jam!" Mercedes stated with attitude.

"Oh shut up wheezy, of course I have a reason."

"Aw hell no, do not use that-" Mercedes started, but Santana cut her off.

"Yeah yeah I know, you'll rip my weave off or some shit, whatever. Now, back to what's actually important. I've decided that we're gonna play a game of spin the bottle/truth or dare."

"Uhh what exactly is spin the bottle/truth or dare?" Kurt asked, convinced he wouldn't like the answer.

"Oh Lady Lips, do you know nothing at all?" Santana shook her head at him and sighed, "Okay for Kurt and anyone else who doesn't know what spin the bottle/truth or dare is let me explain. It is literally a mixture of spin the bottle and truth or dare. So we all sit in a circle, someone spins the bottle and whoever it lands on has to choose between truth or dare and the person who spun the bottle chooses the dare or the question, depending on whether the person chose truth or dare. Get it?"

"Yeah I'm not playing that," Kurt stated.

"Why the fuck not?" Santana asked, she needs everyone to agree to play this so that Quinn has no way of getting out of it.

"I'm just not. It sounds like a recipe for disaster," he replied.

"I'll play!" Rachel all but shouted as she jumped up from the coach.

Everyone turned to look at her with disbelief. Had Rachel goody two shoes Berry really been the first to agree to a party game?

"What? It sounds like fun!" she giggled.

"Yeah okay I'm up for it as well," Puck said, which made Rachel whoop and give him a sloppy high five.

"I wanna play as well!" Brittany said eagerly, turning around to also get a high five from the rather obviously drunk Rachel.

"Yay! Britts is playing!" she cooed happily, turning their high five into a hug.

Brittany hugged her back and smiled up at Santana happily.

Santana forced a smile back, not wanting to let Brittany see that she didn't like the fact that she was cuddling another girl.

"Okay, so we've got Britt, Puck and Berry. Who else is gonna be awesome and join in the epicness that is a Santana Lopez game?"

There was a slight moment of silence which had Santana momentarily think she had failed, but then Artie spoke up, "For shizzle I'm down with that!"

Mike then looked at Tina, who shrugged slightly, "Yeah me and Tina are gonna play."

Santana smiled happily, knowing that soon everyone will be agreeing to play.

"Finn's gonna play as well!" Rachel added.

"Uhh I didn't say that…did I?" he asked confused.

"No, but you will play right?" she replied, letting go of Brittany and moving towards Finn.

"I don't want to Rachel," he said before she reached him.

Rachel pouted heavily but nodded at him.

"Dude come on, don't be a pussy," Puck taunted him.

"I'm not being a pussy, I just don't wanna play!" he replied angrily.

"Yeah cause you're a pussy!" Puck laughed at him.

"I'm not a pussy!" Finn shouted.

"Prove it then," he challenged.

Finn paused for less than a second before saying, "Fine, I'll play!"

Puck and Mike cheered as Finn scowled at them.

"Okay so Finnessa is in," Santana stated, "That only leaves Lady Lips, Wheezy, Trouty Mouth, and Tubbers."

Kurt and Mercedes looked at each other and seemed to have some sort of silent communication. Kurt nodded ever so slightly and then Mercedes turned around and said, "My boy and I are in, but if we feel awkward we are leaving and you aint stopping us!"

"Okay yes good whatever," Santana rolled her eyes at the girls attitude. "That just leaves Ken and Barbie."

Quinn and Sam looked at each other, both of their eyes were wide in horror and they looked positively frightened.

"Uhh yeah I think I'm just gonna give this one a pass," Sam stuttered.

"Yeah me too," Quinn agreed.

"I didn't figure you were a pussy Sam!" Puck laughed.

"Dude that won't work on me," Sam stated easily.

Puck sighed, knowing it was true. Most people cared a lot about being called a pussy or gay or a girl but not Sam. He just shrugged it off. If Puck didn't like him so much he would probably find it very annoying.

"Please play," a voice pleaded.

Quinn closed her eyes and prayed to be taken away from this place and time. Only one person would be able to convince her to play, and it seemed that that was the one person who was going to try and get her to play.

"Please Quinn?" Rachel asked again. She walked over to Quinn and held her hand and looked into her eyes.

Quinn looked back at her and was almost instantly drowning in her gorgeous brown pools. She looked down the girls face at her full lips which were currently sporting a massive pout. _Shit! _Quinn was a sucker for that pout, she could never say no to that pout.

"Ugh okay fine," Quinn groaned.

"Yay!" Rachel squealed and hugged her tightly.

"I'm still not playing," Sam stated simply.

Quinn untangled herself from Rachel, it was hard because Rachel didn't want to be untangled and honestly Quinn didn't really want her to be either, but she finally got the girl off her.

She made her way to Sam and when she was in whispering distance she said, "I'm guessing that they reason you don't wanna play is the same reason I don't."

She paused and looked at him for confirmation, which he gave with a slight nod of his dead.

"Okay well how about we look out for each other? We'll try and make sure that neither of gets asked or dared to do things that have to do with…well you know!" she said, hoping this would work. She wanted him to play so that he didn't feel left out and he didn't get teased and she also wanted to try and make sure his secret didn't get out. She knew how it felt to be afraid of that happening and so she felt she could do her bit to help him. And he could at least feel that he was helping her, though he wouldn't be since he didn't actually know her secret.

Sam looked at her hard for a long moment, and she could practically see his brain clogs working, trying to figure out if this was a good idea. Finally he sighed heavily and said, "Yeah okay fine. As long as we look out for each other yeah? I'll make sure no one says or does anything that will make your feelings about Finn come out and you'll do the same for me but with uhh with Mercedes."

"Of course," she said as she smiled at him.

"Good okay cool," he stammered slightly. He turned to face Santana and said it a louder, more sure voice, "We're in!"

Rachel, Puck and Brittany all cheered happily and Santana smirked with glee, beyond pleased that her plan was working.

"Alright good, now that everyone has decided to not be a boring loser, let's get started."

10 minutes later and the game was in full swing. Santana's spin had landed on Tina, who revealed that no, she was not a virgin. Tina's spin had landed on Puck who had had to give Finn a lap dance…neither boy enjoyed that dare very much. Puck had then got Mike back for laughing at them by making him admitting that he had indeed kissed a boy before. Mike spun and got Santana who he made do a body shot of Brittany, a dare both girls thoroughly enjoyed. And now it was Santana's turn to spin. She was hoping for it to land on Quinn, but when the bottle landed on Rachel she wasn't too disappointed.

Smiling slyly at the girl she asked, "Truth or dare Berry?"

"Uhm well let's see," Rachel began, "I think that truth would be safer, but since I don't very much feel like being safe I will choose dare."

"Wow okay a simple 'dare' would have done it but oh well," she replied, trying to think of the perfect dare.

She looked over at Quinn, who was watching the scene with a concerned look in her eye. Santana smiled as she came up with the perfect dare.

"Okay, I dare you to kiss a girl right now, and no you can't kiss me!"

Rachel thought about the dare and then smiled, "Okay!" she chirped.

She looked around the circle, and when her eyes landed on Mercedes, the girl held up her hands and said, "Wow! No way are you gonna kiss me girl!"

Rachel pouted at her but Mercedes shook her head and continued, "Look I aint no homophobe or anything, you all know that but I aint having Rachel all up on my lips. No way in hell is my first kiss being taken by a girl!"

The other girl thought about this and nodded her head. "That is fair enough Mercedes, everybody's first kiss should be special, and not some drunken dare."

With that she moved her eyes to Tina. She started making her way towards the girl but then Mike spoke up, "Uhh yeah no sorry but you're not kissing my girlfriend."

"What? But why? You kissed a dude before and Tina has kissed you and others before so what's the problem?" Rachel asked, pout back in place.

"Look it has absolutely nothing with you being a girl or anything, I just don't want my girlfriend kissing someone else. I wouldn't kiss anyone else while dating someone, dare or not and I'm pretty sure Tina feels the same way," he explained, looking at Tina to see if she would agree.

Tina smiled at Mike, giving him a quick peck before turning back to look at Rachel, "Yeah I agree. Sorry Rach, I would totally kiss you if I wasn't with Mike!"

"It's quite alright Tina, I understand," Rachel assured her.

She then went back to looking around the circle. So if she couldn't kiss Santana, Mercedes or Tina then that only left Quinn and Brittany. She looked towards Brittany who was simply watching her with a smile on her face, and then to Quinn, whose face was pale and she looked like she was suffering from a heart defect.

Santana watched Rachel look between Quinn and Brittany and suddenly she realised that her plan may not actually go as she planned. She forgot about Brittany, well obviously she hadn't forgotten about her but she had just figured that no one would even dare to try and kiss her girlfriend and so she hadn't factored her into the equation. But now as she watched Rachel and saw that she noticed how scared Quinn looked, she knew who Rachel was going to kiss and she felt sick and angry and stupid.

"Uhh and you can't kiss Brittany either!" she suddenly blurted out, just as Rachel was beginning her crawl towards said girl.

Rachel stopped and gaped at her, "But why?"

"Because I said so," was all Santana could come up with.

Brittany giggled and leant into Santana. She whispered, "You're so sexy when you get all jealous."

Santana smirked and turned to kiss her, but then she remembered why she was jealous in the first place and so instead she looked at Rachel and said, "You are not kissing her okay?"

"No, you said that the only person I can't kiss is you and so therefore Britts is fair game," Rachel argued. She _would_ kiss Quinn and have no problem with that but by the looks of things Quinn really wouldn't be okay with that at all and she didn't want to make her uncomfortable. Also the thought of kissing Quinn made her insides feel funny and she wasn't sure if she liked it. And so therefore she was intent on kissing Brittany.

"You better fucking list-"

"Aw come on San, just let her kiss me. It's just a dare, it doesn't mean anything. We all know it's not me Rachel is in love with!" Brittany cut her off.

Santana opened her mouth to retort, to say something that would make Rachel not go anywhere near her girlfriend, but then she looked at Brittany's smiling, innocent face and she knew she couldn't do anything to make her sad and so she sighed and muttered a grumbled "Fine."

"Yay!" Brittany cheered happily.

Rachel smiled at the blonde and made her way towards her. She stopped just in front of Brittany and didn't move. For some reason Rachel was suddenly feeling very nervous and she wasn't sure why. She had kissed people before; she kissed Finn all the time. She had also kissed Puck and Jesse and Blaine that one time, so what was the problem? Was it really because Brittany was a girl? Why would that bother Rachel? She knew she was in no way homophobic; she had two dads for Pete's sake. She was 100% supportive of Kurt, and she was happy for Brittany and Santana, so what was the problem? Maybe it was because she could feel somebody's eyes boring into her. Yes, that must be it. She could feel Santana glaring at her and so she was off put; I mean how could anyone not be nervous to kiss someone else's partner while that person is watching?

Rachel turned her head slightly in hopes of catching Santana's eye and trying to convey that it really didn't mean anything. That it was just a dare, her dare no less. But when she looked at the girl she was surprised to see that she wasn't looking at Rachel or Brittany. Instead her head was positioned away from them and her eyes were closed. It seemed that she didn't want to watch it.

But then whose eyes could Rachel feel boring into her? She knew someone was watching her. Of course everyone, bar Santana, was watching her, but there was someone who was watching her intently. As though they felt that if they glared hard enough it would all just stop.

Rachel looked around the circle, trying to find the person who was no doubt causing her to feel so uncomfortable. She saw Brittany giving her a questioning look, she saw Puck leering at her and Brittany, she saw Mercedes and Kurt looking on with bored expressions, and then she saw hazel eyes staring at her.

Quinn. It was Quinn who was causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. But why? Why would Quinn be looking at her like that?

Rachel locked eyes with her and tried to make sense of it all, but then Puck spoke and dragged her thoughts, and eyes, away from the blonde girl.

"Can you please hurry this shit up? I've been waiting for you to get some girl action for a long time and I don't wanna be kept waiting any longer!"

"Dude!" Finn reprimanded him.

"Sorry bro but it's true," Puck replied. "Now come on Rachel, you gotta do it."

"Yes I know," Rachel muttered.

She turned and looked at Quinn for a split second before closing the distance between her and Brittany's bodies.

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><p><strong>I promise that the next update will be much, much sooner than this one!<strong>

**As always, please review and tell me what you thought and where you would like this to go or if you have any advice for me.**

**Thank you.**


	9. Chapter 9

******It took me less than 3 weeks to update this time, which for me is not bad! lol**

**This chapter is a bit shorter than my last 2 or 3 have been, but 3000+ words isn't too short right?**

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><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

Brittany tasted of vanilla. Well more like vanilla and alcohol mixed together, which admittedly doesn't sound very pleasing, but Rachel liked it.

She also liked how soft Brittany's lips were and how there was no stubble making her itch and there were no big, rough hands on the side of her face. Just soft, vanilla alcohol flavoured lips.

Truth be told Rachel was sort of losing herself in the kiss. She had entirely forgotten that this was a dare and that there was a room full of people watching; including Brittany's girlfriend. She was simply enjoying the kiss too much!

But then a hand roughly pulling her away from those lips woke her from her kiss induced haze. She blinked her eyes a couple of times before she fully came round.

"That was way fucking longer than it needed to be!" Santana's shouted at her.

Rachel suddenly remembered where they were and who they were with and so she stopped smiling goofily at the blonde and she quickly went back to sit with her boyfriend, who was currently sporting a pained expression.

"Are you okay Finn?" she asked.

"Uhh…yeah. That was just…uhh…yeah no I think I need the bathroom," he stuttered before standing up and bolting out the basement.

Rachel simply watched him go, rolling her eyes at his inability to control himself at all.

She settled down and started looking around the room, trying to pretend she couldn't see Santana glaring at her. That's when she noticed that someone was missing. Not Finn because she knew where he was and why he had gone. No, she had realised that someone else was missing, that someone else had left while she was kissing Brittany. That someone was Quinn.

Rachel looked around again, making sure that she wasn't mistaken. When she was certain that she Quinn was no longer in the basement she turned to Santana and asked, "Where did Quinn go?"

Santana looked around the room. She obviously hadn't noticed the blonde leaving. "I don't know, probably the bathroom."

"Oh okay," Rachel replied, biting her lip and looking around again. "Uhhm I think I might go and look for her actually," she added on.

For some reason she really felt like she needed to go and find Quinn. She felt as though something was wrong; that Quinn hadn't simply needed the bathroom, but that she was upset and if that was the case then Rachel needed to go find her.

"No you stay, I'll go," Santana said as she got up.

"Why?" Rachel asked, "I am very capable of going. Plus, I need to tell her something."

"Yeah well you can tell her when she comes back cause I'm going to go find her," Santana replied, and headed for the door.

Rachel huffed but didn't push it any further. After all, Quinn was probably fine and even if she was upset for some reason she would surely prefer to have her best friend be there for her than some girl she had only recently become friends with.

So she simply watched as Santana climbed the stairs from the basement and up to the still very lively party going on upstairs.

Santana emerged from the basement and was met with a drunk boy who she vaguely recognised as one of the hockey players from school.

"Wazzup Lopez, you wanna ride on my hockey stick?" he leered at her disgustingly.

The girl simply made a face of revulsion and pushed him out the way, not bothering to check if he was okay as she went further into the party to find her friend.

She had checked the kitchen and the bathrooms and ad strained her eyes to see if she was in the main room, but she hadn't been in any of those places. So she decided to look upstairs in the bedrooms.

The bedrooms were more often than not always occupied by horny teenagers doing things they wouldn't usually do if they weren't filled to the brim with alcohol so Santana doubted she would find Quinn in any of them. However, she still went in just in case.

She checked the three bedrooms and as she had suspected, there was no sign of Quinn.

Santana was about to go back downstairs when she looked across the hallway towards the last bedroom. The one bedroom in the house that was off limits since it was Puck's mom's bedroom. No one really went in the parents' bedrooms at any party, but at Puck's parties it was a definite no go. And everyone knew this.

You see Puck's mom was pretty chill; she allowed her son to have parties while she was away just as long as 2 rules were obeyed. 1) When she got home the house had to be clean and there had to be no evidence that there had ever been a party and 2) No one went into her bedroom.

But once, at one of Puck's first parties, someone had broken that rule. Well two someones to be precise. They were well aware of the rule as Puck had told them before the party had started, but they had ignored it. And when Puck's mom had come home she had immediately known someone had been in her room, apparently it was the smell of sex in there, and when Puck found out who it was he had banned them from ever coming to his parties again and effectively cut them out of the "cool circle".

So now everyone knows that the one thing you do not do at a Noah Puckerman party is go into Mrs Puckerman's bedroom.

However, Santana had a gut feeling that Quinn had decided to ignore that rule tonight. She wasn't sure why she felt this, but she just did. So she made her way over to the bedroom and stood in front of it, deciding whether to go in or not. She nervously looked around, making sure no one could see her, before she quickly opened the door and entered the dark room.

She closed the door behind her and took a few more steps into the pitch black room.

"Quinn?" she hesitantly called out.

There was no reply.

"Quinn are you in here" she tried again.

But once again she was met with silence.

Santana sighed, concluding that her gut feeling must have been wrong. She turned around and made her way back to the door. She had her hand on the handle and was about to leave when she heard a sniffle from behind her.

She smiled in victory as she turned around and once again made her way into the room.

"I knew you were in here Q!" she showed off.

Slowly she kept making her way towards where she figured Quinn was.

"Shit fuck!" she cursed as her knee collided with something hard.

She heard a slight giggle to her right and she turned around to try and see if she could make the girl out.

She couldn't, but she walked forwards again, this time being extra careful.

Finally she bumped into a body which swore and pushed her slightly.

"Calm down Tubbers!" Santana hissed as she sat down on the bed Quinn was already vacating.

"What are you doing here?" Quinn asked, her voice rather raw sounding.

"Oh you know, I thought I would come into Mrs Puckerman's room for funsies, just to see if it would end as badly for me as it did for those two idiots from last year."

Quinn sighed but didn't say anything.

"So…what's got you all depressed and emo?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Oh yeah sure. I mean you're totally known for stroming out of parties and sitting alone in dark, off limit bedrooms all by yourself," Santana mocked.

Once again Quinn didn't say anything back.

"Seriously Q, what's up?" Santana tried again, this time her voice softer. "Is it Berry?"

"What? No of course not! What does Rachel have to do with any of this?" Quinn stammered.

"I don't know, why don't you tell me?" Santana goaded.

"S that shit isn't gonna work on me okay?"

"If you say so…I just think it's fishy the way you've been acting recently!" she stated, hoping for a reaction of some kind.

"What do you mean, how I've been acting?"

Santana smirked in the dark, knowing she had Quinn's full attention now. It was time for Santana to get the answers she wanted. "Well I mean every time Rachel and Finn are hugging or kissing or even just sitting together, you have this scowl on your face. And you constantly watch them with this half jealous half depressed longing look on your face. Oh and not to mention that you constantly make Rachel think that Finn isn't a good boyfriend, which he isn't but that's not the point."

"I have no idea what you're talking about S," Quinn muttered, though her heart was starting to pick up pace.

"Oh yes you do. You are so jealous of Finn and Rachel and you just cannot stand watching them be in love. You hate that they are together and you just want them to break up." Santana explained, smiling secretly because she knew that it wasn't long until Quinn just admitted it was true.

"Oh my god, why is everyone suddenly convinced that I am in love with Finn?" Quinn basically shouted. "I am not jealous of Rachel, I do not want Finn back, I am not getting closer to Rachel just to steal her stupid oaf of a boyfriend from her okay?"

"That's not what I said," Santana stated calmly.

"Huh?" now Quinn was confused because she was sure that that was exactly what Santana had been saying. Unless…no there was no way she knew. Sam hadn't known and Santana didn't know either. She shouldn't be worrying about this because she didn't know, there was no way.

"I know you're not jealous of Rachel," the Latina started, pausing for a few seconds to allow the moment to build up. "You're jealous of Finn."

Quinn's heart started to beat dangerously fast. She could feel the pulse in her neck quicken and her head started to spin. She couldn't believe this was happening. This couldn't be happening. There was just no way that Santana knew, no way that she had figured it out.

She had to try and lead the girl off the tracks, try and make her think that it wasn't true. And so she took a deep breath and focused on not crying. She focused on calming herself down and entering the role of someone who had heard something so preposterous it was funny.

After giving herself a few seconds she turned to face where she thought Santana's face was and she laughed. She laughed long and hard and as convincingly as she could.

"Oh wow!" she breathed. "For a second there I thought you were serious San!"

But instead of Santana laughing with her and agreeing that it was funny, nothing happened. There was no response. No laughter, no chuckle, no murmur of any kind. Just silence.

The silence was deafening. It was scaring Quinn, and taunting her and laughing at her. It was telling her that Santana knew, she knew all about her secret and there was nothing she could do to change that.

She didn't know what to do, what to say or how to react. She had imagined someone finding out about her secret countless times over the years but she never truly realised how scary it would be.

She knew that Santana knew, the girl was sure about this and no pretending or lying on Quinn's part would change that. But she wasn't ready to admit all of this to Santana, or anyone for that matter, and so she had to at least try and keep it a secret.

So she laughed again and made sure to keep her voice steady and strong as she calmly said, "San you're talking nonsense and it's starting to get rather boring, so I'm just gonna go."

"Oh please, don't even bother okay?" the brunette laughed. "You can say whatever you want but it aint gonna change anything okay? I know and you know that I know so just accept it!"

And once again Quinn was finding a comeback difficult. She was known for her comebacks and for not letting people have the last word and yet here she was, unable to think of a single thing to say. So she scoffed; she scoffed because if she didn't then she would cry. If she didn't scoff and pretend that this was absurd then Santana would know that it was true and then Quinn's world would come crashing down. If Santana actually knew then that would be it, her life as she knows it would be over because there is no way in hell Santana wouldn't use this against her. She has been trying to find something on Quinn for over a year just so she can use it to bring Quinn down and herself up. Quinn didn't doubt for a second that Santana would tell everyone and then she would be kicked off the squad and everyone would talk about her behind her back and her parents would find out and she would be burned at the stake and she can't have that. She can't…she can't have anyone knowing. She can't…she can't…oh god she can't breathe.

"Look Q, you can scoff all you like but it's not going to change the fact that I know. So why don't you just relax and tell Auntie Tana everything?" the Latina goaded.

After a while of silence Quinn heard Santana sigh._Maybe she's giving up! Oh God please let her be giving up. _However, instead of doing what Quinn was silently begging her to do Santana did the exact opposite and moved closer to Quinn.

"Look Quinn, it's okay. I mean I don't get why the fuck you would like Berry of all people because she's like what? 3 foot and she dresses like a grandmother!" she criticized harshly. "But whatever, I don't care okay?"

When Quinn still didn't answer she hesitantly lifted her hand and placed it on Quinn's shoulder, hoping to show her that she was being sincere and that Quinn could trust her and just be honest about it all.

But it had the opposite effect.

Quinn angrily shrugged the hand off her shoulder and stood up to create more space between the two girls. "I don't know what the fuck kind of drugs you've been doing Santana but you're talking nonsense!" she barked out.

Santana resisted the urge to retaliate and start an actual fight because she understood. She knew how Quinn was feeling and why she was reacting the way she was because she had been in that same place not even 3 months ago.

So she closed her eyes and counted to 10 before calmly saying, "Quinn it's okay."

"Seriously just fucking drop it now because it isn't funny," Quinn growled.

"It's okay Quinn. You can talk to me okay?"

"What the fuck do you mean 'it's okay'? There is nothing for you to say that about because nothing is happening! This is all in your head and you're talking shit and just because you and Brittany are fucking faggots doesn't mean all of us are!"

Quinn gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. She couldn't believe she had said that. Why had she said that? Why did she always lash out and hurt the people she cared about? Santana was going to hate her now, and rightly so. She just could not believe she had said that.

"San I'm s-" she started but was cut off.

"Shut up!"

The blonde gulped and did as she was told. Her heart was beating so fast and she could feel the sweat begin to form at her brow. She was frightened and for more than one reason. The first being that it was very likely Santana was going to beat the living day lights out of her and leave her for dead, and the second being that if there was any chance of Santana not telling the whole school what she knew then those chanced were pretty much non-existent now.

So she kept her mouth shut and waited for what Santana was going to say…or do.

Seconds went by and nothing happened, and then she heard the girl stand up from the bed and so she closed her eyes and prayed that the pain wouldn't be too bad.

But still there was nothing; no slap, no punch, no snarl, no threat. Nothing.

So Quinn slowly opened her eyes and tried to focus on where Santana was, to try and see what she was doing.

She was still trying to get her eyes to focus on something when she heard Santana sigh quietly.

She turned to where the sound had come from; the door. And she opened her mouth to speak, the silence was just too much for her.

But Santana got there before she could form any words. "You are so fucking…lucky that we're friends and that I feel for you."

Quinn didn't exactly know what Santana meant but it sounded promising so she kept quiet and waited for her to keep talking.

"You are so fucking lucky that I get it and that I understand why you're…saying the things you're saying and doing the things you're doing. You are so lucky that I once did a very similar thing and so I know you didn't really mean it. You are so lucky that Brittany has calmed me down these past few months. You are just plain fucking lucky because I promise you, if even just one of those things hadn't been true then you would be on the floor bleeding from every possible fucking place a person can bleed from. Do you understand?"

Quinn understood. She definitely understood because not only had she seen what happens to people who cross Santana, but she'd also seen what happens to people who saying anything bad about Brittany. And it isn't pretty.

But she also understood the hidden meaning. She understood that Santana was saying that if she didn't quit the crap and just be honest about this whole thing then her luck may just run out. And she wasn't sure if she was ready…but it seemed like she didn't have much of a choice.

So she took a deep breath and whispered, "Yeah, I understand."

She hoped Santana understood too. She hoped she got that she was admitting it all as much as she could but that she couldn't out right say it and she definitely couldn't talk about it.

"Good," was Santana's muttered reply.

There was another beat of silence before she was talking again, "I'm really pissed off at you right now and I'm only just holding myself back from hurting you so I'm just going to say one thing and then I'm going."

"O-okay," Quinn stuttered.

"It's okay. It's okay that…you feel the things you feel and it's okay that you don't want to talk about them and that you are scared and that you lashed out. It's okay that you're hiding. It's okay that I know because you can trust me. It's just all okay," Santana finished off her short speech quietly and sincerely before opening the door and leaving Quinn alone in the darkness.

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><p><strong>As always, please review and tell me what you thought.<strong>

**Also, I'm sorry that I haven't been replying to my reviews...I have no excuse except that I am a terrible person! But from now on I promise to reply because I do honestly appreciate every single review I get and I need to start showing that I think!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Wow I really need to stop promising people that I will update quickly because I never do and in fact when I do promise that, it actually just takes me an even longer time to update. So yeah, definitely no more promises of fast updates.**

**Oh and also, if any of you are reading my other fic "This is not What I Planned" then I'm really sorry but I have to put it on hold because it is impossible for me to write two fics at a time. So I will have to finish this one first before I continue with that one. Sorry.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

Quinn sat in the dark room for at least another half an hour. She just sat there, alone with only her thoughts keeping her company.

She couldn't believe that she had called Santana a faggot. And Brittany too. She had called her two best friends in the entire world faggots! What kind of person did that?

She also couldn't believe that her secret was out. Sure it was only to one person and that one person was her best friend and she had promised to not tell anyone, but it was still out. Someone apart from herself knew that she was not only was gay but also in love with Rachel Berry. And that scared the shit out of her.

So she sat in the room, her thoughts making her head spin and her stomach flip uncomfortably. One moment she would be overcome with guilt over what she said to Santana and then next she would be scared stiff at the knowledge that somebody knew. She just wished she could make it all stop. Make the feelings stop, make her thoughts stop, make the time stop. She wanted to disappear, to run away from it all but she knew she couldn't, and so she gave herself a few more minutes before she sighed heavily and got up.

She stopped off in the bathroom to wash her face and make her look more presentable. If someone saw her now they would know for sure that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks were blotchy and her nose was running. She looked at herself in the mirror and cringed at the sight. _I am such an ugly crier! _

Sighing she turned on the tap and splashed cold water on her face, dabbing at her eyes and cheeks to try and get them to return to normal. She grabbed a tissue and blew here nose before looking back at her reflection. She at least looked a hair more presentable, though it was still pretty clear that she had been crying.

She decided that she couldn't do any better and so she left the bathroom and made her way back down to the basement.

When she got there she saw that they had stopped the game of spin the bottle and truth or dare or whatever it was called. _Thank God!_

Now they were all just dancing or goofing around, and Rachel was of course performing a song. There wasn't a stage in Puck's basement like there was in Rachel's and so she was resigned to performing on the floor, but it didn't seem to bother her. In fact she seemed to be enjoying herself very much and Quinn smiled as she watched her sing, and perform, _Popular_ with Kurt.

She looked across the room and noticed Santana watching her. She couldn't bear to look at her, not after what she had said. Not with the knowledge that Santana knew about everything. She just couldn't deal with it. She could not bring herself to look at her into those knowing eyes. Those hurt, betrayed, knowing eyes. She couldn't face that, not now. She knew she would have to eventually, but not right that second, and so she moved her eyes away from Santana and made her way over to where Mercedes, Artie and Puck were talking and sat down next to Mercedes on the sofa.

"Hey girl where did you run off to?" Mercedes asked her.

Quinn smiled at the girl and shrugged her shoulders. "Nowhere, I just needed the bathroom."

"Yeah right, so that's why dashed off at the speed of light?" Artie asked, joining in on the conversation.

"Well yeah, I didn't want to pee my pants!" Quinn joked easily, though she was secretly starting to get uncomfortable. She didn't like it that they were asking her these questions or that they were insinuating that there was a reason why she had ran off. She just wanted them to drop it before she freaked out and got extra paranoid.

Puck laughed at that and added his two cents, "Yeah I totally get that! Once I was really drunk and I almost didn't realise in time, if you get me!"

"Ewww!" exclaimed Quinn and Mercedes together. Artie didn't say anything but he was sporting a rather disgusted expression.

"Anyway, I used the toilet and then I decided to stay up there for a while cause the music's good and it's actually pretty fun!" Quinn carried on with her lie.

"Really?" Artie asked, "I might go up and check it out then. Wanna come with Quinn?"

"Uhh no thanks, I kinda want to sit down and chill out for a while," she replied. There was no way she wanted to go up there and get cajoled into dancing with some idiots while she could be down here watching Rachel Berry sing and dance and laugh and have a good drunken time.

"Oh okay, what about you Mercedes? Puck?" he asked the other two.

They looked at each other and shrugged. "Yeah okay, I'll come up." Puck agreed easily.

"Homegirl is coming too!" Mercedes said as she stood up and laughed with Artie at the self-given nickname.

Quinn waved bye to them and once again turned her attention to Rachel who was taking a bow as she had just finished her performance. Quinn applauded her but didn't overdo it as she didn't want people eyeing her curiously.

"Hey Quinn!" Rachel shouted at her from across the room.

_Oh no!_

"Quinn! Come sing with me Quinn!" the brunette hollered at her.

She shook her head at Rachel. Quinn may enjoy singing but she didn't exactly enjoy putting on performances for everyone. She knew she wasn't the strongest singer and so she wasn't all that confident in performing in front of people.

Rachel was now making her way towards Quinn and smiling so brightly at her. When she reached the blonde she excitedly said, "Come sing with me Quinn."

Again Quinn shook her head. "No thanks, why don't you go sing a solo?"

Rachel's eyes lit up at the idea of performing a solo. It would be her third of the night. But she shook her head and explained, "No I wanna sing with you! We never sing together and it makes me sad."

She was now pouting at Quinn and the blonde could feel her resolve crumbling. Rachel and her damn pout!

"We've sang together before Rachel. Remember we did that mash up of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story and Unpretty by TLC?"

Rachel smiled happily at the memory of them performing that song.

"Yeah but that was for Glee, I wanna sing with you for fun!" she whined.

Quinn groaned as she could feel herself giving in to Rachel's pleas. She really didn't want to sing right now, not in front of everyone and not with Rachel while Santana was in the room, knowing how she felt. She just couldn't deal with it. But the look on Rachel's face; the silent begging, the pouty lips, the scrunched nose, the hope in her eyes. How could she possibly say no?

"Okay fine I'll si-" she started to say.

"No." the other girl interrupted her.

"What?" Quinn was confused, why was Rachel saying no now?

"I can see you don't really want to sing with me and I don't want to force you to do something you don't want to do."

"No I do, I was just hesitant because I'm nervous. But I do really want to sing with you," Quinn lied. She really didn't like the thought of hurting Rachel's feelings or letting her down in any way.

"Quinn it's okay. I'm not upset with you or anything," Rachel smiled at her reassuringly. "I just really wanted to sing with my friend, but I totally understand that you may not feel comfortable singing with me in front of all these people."

The way Rachel said it, as though she thought Quinn didn't want to sing with her was because she didn't want everyone to see her sing with Rachel. Like it was the Rachel aspect that would make her uncomfortable made her want to cry.

"It's not because of you. You know that right? That it has nothing to do with you or the thought of singing with you or anything like that. That isn't why I don't want to do this" she said sincerely, hoping that Rachel believed her.

"I know," the girl replied easily.

"Really? Because the way you said it…it was like you thought I was embarrassed of you or something and Rachel I swear that's not the case."

Rachel smiled at Quinn and placed her hand on Quinn's arm. "I know Quinn. I believe you okay? I know that that isn't what this is about. Sure a few months or even weeks ago I would have thought differently but not now. Not now."

Quinn searched Rachel's face, trying to see any signs that she was being untruthful, but there were none and so she smiled back at her. "Good."

"But I still want to sing with you. Not now and not in front of anyone else. Just you and me."

Quinn's mind went straight to dirty places when Rachel said "just you me" and she could feel herself blushing. She discreetly shook her head and tried to focus her mind back to the present.

"Yeah, that sounds great. I would honestly love that!" she replied sincerely, smiling widely at Rachel.

Rachel smiled back, just as wide and then went in for a hug that Quinn was wholly unprepared for.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed as Rachel nearly toppled her over.

"Sorry," the brunette muttered shyly as she pulled back from the hug.

"It's okay, I just wasn't expecting it. You usually warn people before you hug them!" Quinn explained. She had always found it funny how Rachel warned people that she was going to hug them. She did it with everyone, even Kurt. The only person she didn't do it with was Finn. She didn't know why the girl did it but she liked it. She liked that she was so quirky and odd and that she did things like announce to someone that she was going to hug them.

But the fact that she hadn't warned Quinn? Well that damn near melted Quinn's heart. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe Rachel just wasn't warning people anymore, maybe it was a mistake, but maybe, and oh god Quinn hoped this was the reason, maybe it was because Rachel felt comfortable around Quinn. Maybe she didn't feel the need to warn her; maybe she trusted her and felt like it was okay to hug her without warning. Sure it probably had nothing to do with that but Quinn was allowed to hope wasn't she?

"Umm anyway since you're not singing with me I think I'll go find someone else to sing with!" Rachel announced, dragging Quinn out of her head.

"Oh okay," she replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

"What's wrong?" clearly she hadn't succeeded.

"What? Nothing!" she lied. She couldn't exactly tell her that she was upset because she had wanted Rachel to stay with her instead of running off and singing with someone else. Especially if that someone turned out to be Finn.

"Are you sure?" Rachel persisted.

Quinn smiled at the diva and replied honestly, "I would love it if you went and sang something. I missed all your other performances so I definitely want to make up for that."

It wasn't a lie. She really did want to hear Rachel sing and watch her perform. It was one of her favourite things to do and even though she may be disappointed that Rachel wasn't going to stay and talk with her, she would be more than happy to watch the girl put on one of her outstanding performances.

Rachel's face lit up at Quinn's comment and she smiled goofily. "Okay! You know I would never refuse an opportunity to perform and I would definitely never say no to someone's request to hear me sing. Let me just go find Finn so we can do a duet together."

"No!" Quinn shouted.

Rachel jumped and looked at Quinn in bewilderment.

"Uhm I mean, it's just that…uhh…well Finn doesn't look all that capable of singing right now. I mean he seems a little drunk and I doubt he would be able to sing with you without messing up somehow, because of how drunk he is and you don't uhh you wouldn't want that right? You wouldn't want your performance to be ruined like that!" she explained, blushing furiously at how stupid she sounded.

Rachel looked over to where Finn was and frowned when she saw that he was dancing, well she thought it was dancing but it was hard to tell with him, and laughing uncontrollably at something that Kurt had said. She sighed and nodded her head. "I suppose you're right. He does look rather intoxicated and while I too am rather tipsy I feel that he would not be able to perform in that state like I am able to do."

Quinn nodded her agreement and felt relief flood her body. Sure, Rachel and Finn singing a duet wasn't the worst thing in the world and it wasn't something that was rare either, but right now Quinn just did not feel like she could cope watching those two being all cute and couple-y.

"Okay well I've already sang with Kurt and Puck isn't here, I think I'll ask Tina to join me," Rachel told Quinn.

"Why don't you just sing a solo?" the blonde asked before Rachel moved towards Tina.

Rachel looked back at Quinn and seemed to think about it before replying. "Well I could do a solo but I thought that it would be nice if other people got to perform as well. Plus people get tired of my solos and I don't want to ruin the party!"

"I can honestly say that I don't know of a single person in the world who would get tired of hearing you sing a song Rachel," Quinn blurted out before thinking it through properly.

Rachel ducked her head shyly and smiled slightly before looking up at a very embarrassed Quinn. "You really mean that?" she asked.

"Uhh well yeah. I mean your voice is really…it's really special and mesmerising and beautiful and so yeah I don't think anyone in the world would get tired of hearing it. Even Santana and Mercedes, with all their complaining, don't really get tired of hearing you sing," Quinn told her, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible and not give away just how much she really loved hearing the girl sing.

Rachel looked at the blonde for a long time, long enough to make Quinn uncomfortable and have to fidget in her seat and look away from the piercing brown orbs a few times.

"Thank you Quinn. That…that was really _really_ sweet!" she whispered.

Quinn didn't say anything; she just smiled at the brunette and shrugged as if to say "it's nothing".

"Okay well I guess I'm going to go and perform a solo now," Rachel said, breaking the serious and sincere feeling that was hanging around the two girls.

"Okay well enjoy yourself!" Quinn laughed and waved as Rachel made her way towards Santana and Brittany who were drunkenly singing song that no one recognised to one another.

Rachel chose her song from the collection and patiently waited for them to finish so she could have her chance to shine. When they were done she applauded them, even though they had been atrocious, and smiled warmly at both of them.

Brittany smiled back but Santana just rolled her eyes as they handed over the mic and went to get some more drinks.

"That was a beautiful song Brittany and Santana," Rachel lied into the microphone. "I know I have sang a few songs already tonight but I have it on good authority that no one gets tired of hearing me sing, so…" she left the end of the sentence hanging, trusting that everyone would get what she was saying.

"Whoever told you that is a liar hobbit!" Santana shouted from across the room.

Rachel simply ignored her and looked over at Quinn who was sitting where she had left her and said, "This song is dedicated to my good friend, Quinn Fabray and while it may not exactly be one of my favourites, it was the only appropriate one I could find to express my feelings right now. So here you are Quinn!"

The blonde choked on her drink and turned big hazel eyes on Rachel. The brunette just smiled a small sincere smile at her before moving to turn the music on.

Quinn watched, mesmerised and in shock, as the song began to play.

_Did that really happen? Did Rachel just dedicate a song to me? It did didn't it? Rachel Berry just dedicated a song to me, to Quinn Fabray! In front of all these people, in front of her boyfriend! She is singing a song dedicated to me! I can't believe this is happening._

But it was happening. It really was. Rachel Berry was about to sing a song that she had dedicated to Quinn. The blonde was sure her heart was about to burst out of her chest and her smile was going to split her face. She didn't even know what song was playing; she couldn't even hear the music. All she could hear was Rachel's words, echoing through her mind again and again. "_This song is dedicated to my good friend, Quinn Fabray. Dedicated. Good friend. Quinn Fabray"!_

And then Rachel began singing and as always Quinn was pulled out of her thoughts and away from her surroundings and all she could hear and see and register was Rachel. Rachel singing the most beautiful song she had ever heard. Rachel singing for her, a song she had dedicated to her.

_If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea,  
>I'll sail the world to find you<br>If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see,  
>I'll be the light to guide you<em>

Quinn knew this song; it was that Bruno Mars song. Quinn was hardly the biggest Bruno Mars fan, and she guessed neither was Rachel, but this was one of the only songs of his that she actually liked. And anyway, Rachel could have sang her a 50 cent song and Quinn would love it!

_You can count on me like 1 2 3  
>I'll be there<br>And I know when I need it I can count on you like 4 3 2  
>And you'll be there<br>Cause that's what friends are supposed to do, oh yeah_

Now that Quinn thought about it, this was a beautiful song. It was simple and it was quite cheesy, but it was beautiful. And the fact that Rachel would choose this song to sing to her? A song about how she would always be there for Quinn and she knew Quinn would always be there for her, because they were such good friends? It made Quinn want to cry. Happy tears of course!

_If you toss and you turn and you just can't fall asleep  
>I'll sing a song beside you<br>And if you ever forget how much you really mean to me  
>Every day I will remind you<em>

The thought of Rachel singing to her as she fell asleep made Quinn's heart swell and her chest ache. The thought of being able to call Rachel when she needed help and Rachel would be there made Quinn smile and feel a weird sense of relief come over her. As though she had been waiting for this for so long; waiting for someone to say to her "I will always be here for you. No matter what. And you can call me if you need me, no matter where you are or what time it is or how much shit has gone on between us, I will always come to get you because we are friends and you can count on me." The blonde felt tears prick at her eyes and she blinked heavily a few times, forcing them away. She didn't want to seem upset by this, she wanted to smile and be happy and show Rachel that this meant the world to her.

She brushed away the few fallen tears and looked back up at the brunette who was looking right at her as she sang.

_You'll always have my shoulder when you cry  
>I'll never let go<br>Never say goodbye_

She smiled at the girl and shook her head as if to say "I can't believe you did this!"

Rachel smiled back and then turned her attention to the "audience" as she continued to sing. Quinn kept watching her with a smile plastered on her face. Her misty eyes moved away from the diva for one second and she caught Santana watching her. This time she didn't look away. Did she still feel scared? Yes. Did she still feel guilty? Of course, she didn't think she would ever stop feeling guilty. But now, with Rachel singing a song dedicated to her, she felt just a little bit braver. Just a little bit more hopeful. And so she kept her eyes locked with Santana's, hoping that the girl wasn't so angry with her that she would snap at her or attack her, not that she would blame her. She just hoped that their friendship wasn't beyond repair.

A few seconds passed and Quinn began feeling a whole lot less brave. She was about to avert her eyes and accept that what she had done was unforgivable when she saw Santana's lips twitch upwards. It wasn't a smile but it was something. And Quinn would take it. She would take it with both hands and hold onto it for as long as she could.

She knew this didn't mean their friendship was fixed and she knew Santana was probably going to make her life hell for a couple of days, but it didn't matter because she had seen the twitch. She had seen the slight twitch of lips and the almost there smirk and she knew. She knew things were fixable. And so she smiled a small smile at the Latina before moving her eyes away, trying to show the girl that she understood. That she saw the peace offering but that she also knew that she had to give Santana her space and some time before things could be okay again.

She moved her eyes back to Rachel who had almost finished her song and she felt her face splitting smile come back. Santana didn't fully hate her and Rachel was singing a song dedicated to her. Things were going to be just fine.

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><p><strong>As always please review and tell me what you thought because your reviews and your input are what keeps me going (thank you so much to every single person who takes time to review btw).<strong>

**Also, I finished this at like 3:30am so if there are loads of mistakes I am really sorry!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Hey," Quinn turned around to see Rachel smiling at her.

"Hi."

"Friday was fun!" Rachel stated, moving to lean against the locker next to Quinn's.

"Yeah it was," she agreed.

"I forgot to ask what was wrong though."

"What do you mean?" Quinn closed her locker and focused her attention on Rachel.

"Well you disappeared for a while," Rachel explained.

"No I didn't," Quinn argued.

"Yes you did! After spin the bottle and before I sang that song for you," the brunette countered.

Quinn smiled at the memory of Rachel singing her a beautiful song filled with promises in the basement of the party, but then she remembered why she had disappeared and her smile dropped. "Nothing was wrong, I just wanted to go upstairs for a bit, see how the party was up there," she lied.

"Are you sure?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah of course, why?" Quinn wondered.

"I don't know, it's just that I saw you go and then I saw Santana go and then Santana came back looking angry and then you came back ages later looking like a ghost and I don't know I just…was kind of worried but I didn't want to say anything then because I thought I would make you angry or I would just annoy, but then over the weekend I thought about it and I realised that even if it angered you I was going to ask cause maybe you wanted to talk about it but you didn't know I was here for you and well so that's why I asked now!"

"Wow!" Quinn laughed, she was used to Rachel's ramblings but it was still always so…interesting to hear really go for it!

"Sorry," Rachel mumbled. She was trying not to ramble so much since everyone said how annoying it was, and because she knew that when she rambled Finn couldn't keep up and he ended up not hearing anything she was saying.

"No it's okay!" Quinn assured her. "It's actually nice to know that you care so much!" Rachel smiled at that. "Yeah well you're my friend and friends are there for each other right?"

"Yeah," Quinn agreed.

"So?"

"So, what?"

"So, what was wrong?"

"It was honestly nothing."

Rachel gave Quinn a look of disbelief which made Quinn laugh. "I swear it's nothing for you to worry about!"

"If you're sure!" Rachel said, trying to get a real answer out of her friend.

"I am." Quinn replied, not giving Rachel anything.

Rachel sighed, but accepted that Quinn wasn't going to tell her. "Just remember…"

"You're here for me. I know!" Quinn finished her sentence for her.

"Good," Rachel smiled at her, glad that Quinn knew that she really was here for her.

"Rachey! Q!" they heard a cheery voice call.

"Hey B," Quinn called back to Brittany, who was making her way over to them, with Santana in two.

"Hello Britts," Rachel greeted when they were nearer.

"And hello Santana," Rachel greeted the less enthusiastic of the pair.

"Yeah hi," was Santana's reply, which was a lot better than almost any greeting Rachel had ever received from the cheerleader.

"Hi Santana," Quinn quietly greeted.

"…Hi."

A very awkward silence overcame the four students. Rachel looked between Santana who looked angry and Quinn who looked guilty and sad.

"The party was so fun right?" Brittany cheerily asked, breaking the silence.

Since neither Quinn nor Santana were answering the blonde, Rachel decided to do so. "Yes it really was Britts!"

"You're a good kisser!" the blonde blurted out which made Rachel blush and look at Santana in fear of the girl getting jealous and kicking her teeth out.

"Uhh thanks Britts…you too!" she said, hoping it wouldn't make Santana mad.

"I know!" Brittany replied easily.

Rachel smiled at this; she loved how confident Brittany was and how she wasn't afraid to show it. In fact Brittany was the one who convinced Rachel that it was okay to be confident in who you are and not apologise to anyone for knowing that you are talented.

Santana was looking at Quinn to gauge the blonde's reaction to the exchange that was going on, but Quinn wasn't reacting, not visibly anyway, but Santana knew Quinn and she could tell that her friend was putting on a relaxed and neutral face even though she wasn't feeling that way inside. She sighed sadly, knowing what Quinn was going through but decided not to dwell on it too much. This was Quinn's problem, not hers. Plus she wasn't ready to be best friends with the girl yet. "I gotta go, I got politics."

"Bye San," Brittany moved in to give her a hug.

"Bye Santana," Quinn said hopefully. Santana looked at her for a moment and then nodded her head slightly before walking off.

Rachel turned and gave Quinn a look that said "that was not nothing, something has happened!" Quinn just smiled and shook her head. "I've got to go too, I have science," she said instead.

"Okay. Bye Quinn," Rachel waved at her.

"Bye Q!" Brittany called, smiling brightly at her friend.

Bye, see you," Quinn said to both of them before walking away with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Rachel watched her go and frowned sadly.

"Don't worry she'll be okay" Brittany assured.

Rachel turned to look at Brittany, a hopeful look in her eyes. "Do you know what happened with her and Santana at the party? Did Santana tell you?"

"Santana didn't tell me anything, no," Brittany replied.

Rachel sighed and turned back to where Quinn had walked off.

"It's okay though, you'll see. Everything will be okay soon you just gotta give her some time, that's how Santana was as well!" the blonde explained, giving Rachel a comforting squeeze on her shoulder.

Rachel frowned in confusion. She had no idea what Brittany was talking about but she was tired and she didn't have the energy to get into it.

"Come on we've got food together," Brittany said and started walking off, pulling Rachel along with her.

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><p>In glee Rachel sat down next to Quinn and said, "Kiss me."<p>

Quinn sputtered and choked on nothing, her face going red. "Huh?"

Rachel laughed and patted Quinn's back to make sure she was okay. "It suits your voice very well and while it's not something I would usually sing I can easily adapt to it." Quinn still looked very confused so Rachel explained more. "The song. You know? For the duet you promised we would do."

"Oh yeah!" Quinn exclaimed. "I didn't think you would already have a song choice though."

"Quinn this is me we're talking about, of course I do!" Rachel joked which made Quinn laugh and she nodded her head in agreeance.

"So do you want come round after Glee and we can practice? We could also just hang out and stuff?"

"Uhh I don't know."

"Oh okay. I get it…I just thought maybe…no it's okay I get why!" Rachel said, clearly upset.

"No it's just that well I don't think I'll be very welcome there," Quinn explained.

"What do you mean?"

"Well I doubt your parents would like to come home and find the girl who tormented their daughter in their house with said daughter!"

"Don't be silly they won't mind," Rachel promised.

"Are you sure? They won't have a single problem at all with me being there?" Quinn asked, very sure that they couldn't be okay with it. Rachel looked slightly unsure and she didn't answer straight away. "I knew it!" Quinn exclaimed.

"No! No, they will be okay with it," Rachel tried to assure a dubious looking Quinn. "My dad might be slightly put off as he is very protective but he won't be horrible or anything and daddy will be totally okay with it. They know I've been hanging out with you anyway so it's not like it will be a shock or anything." Quinn still looked hesitant but she looked at Rachel who was pouting her lips and using her pleading eyes so Quinn simply sighed and agreed to go over after Glee. Rachel squealed and hugged Quinn, promising it was going to be so much fun. At that moment Santana and Brittany came in and Santana stopped at the doorway and watched Quinn and Rachel. Quinn froze and was about to pull away as quickly as possible but she stopped herself, reminding herself that she wasn't doing anything wrong and there was nothing for her to be ashamed of, so instead of pulling away she hugged Rachel tighter and held Santana's gaze. Santana noticed this and smirked, raising her eyebrow at the same time before moving her eyes away and moving to sit down next to Brittany. Quinn smiled with pride for being strong enough to not pull away and with relief that Santana was back to her usual self of smirking and challenging Quinn. Usually that smirk would make warning bells go off in Quinn's head but now it showed her that Santana wasn't beyond angry with her. She was expecting her to mess with her and make fun and smirk every time she and Rachel were together, and while that could be annoying, at least she knew she hadn't lost her friend.

Rachel pulled away from Quinn and smiled at her. "Thank you for agreeing to come Quinn, I promise it's going to be fun. You can even stay for dinner if you want!"

Mr Schuester came in then and started talking about the newest inspirational lesson he was going to try and teach them, but Quinn wasn't listening, she was too busy worrying about going to Rachel's and meeting her dads.

* * *

><p>"My dad dropped me off today so can you give me a lift? I'm nit great at giving directions but I'll do my best!" Rachel asked as they were walking out of Glee.<p>

"Well we are going to the same place so I don't see why not!" Quinn replied cheekily. "But if you really are that rubbish at directions then I'm kicking you out the car and just going home!"

Rachel gasped in fake shock. "I cannot believe that you would even say that!"

"Well if you can't direct me to your house then how do you expect me to get there? And if we can't get there then what would be the point in just driving around aimlessly? It makes much more sense for you to just try and make your own way back while I, an innocent party in it all, gets to just go home!" Quinn joked, earning a playful punch from her outraged friend.

The truth was that Quinn did actually know where Rachel lived but she didn't want Rachel knowing that she used to drive past the girls house every other night when she was pregnant, debating whether to go in and cry and beg for forgiveness and just have someone hold her.

Rachel turned on the radio as soon as they got in the car and stubbornly stated "I get to choose the music we listen to as you were so mean to me."

Quinn laughed but didn't argue as she started the car and drove out of the school car parl. Rachel started singing along to the radio straight away which of course made Quinn smile. She wanted to laugh when she realised how ridiculous it is that she never used to know that she liked Rachel and that she had actually managed to convince herself that she found the girl insufferable when in reality she found her insanely adorable! She decided to focus on the road instead of the girl beside her as she really didn't want to cause an accident. They rode mainly in silence, with Rachel singing along to any of the songs she knew (which were basically all of them) and telling Quinn where to go (she really was terrible at giving directions and if Quinn didn't know where she lived then they would have gotten lost by now!)

They reached the house and Rachel noticed how nervous Q was. "Don't worry, I told you it was going to be okay," Rachel tried to ease her worries.

Quinn smiled but Rachel could easily tell that she was still really nervous. "They aren't even in right now; they never get back till gone 5." This piece of information visibly made Quinn relax which made Rachel chuckle. "Come on then, let's go."

They got out the car and Rachel led Quinn up the pathway and into the house. Rachel's house was smaller than Quinn's but was still quite big, bigger than Brittany's and Finn's. Probably the same size as Santana's. One of Rachel's dads was a doctor so it didn't surprise Quinn that they are well off. Her other dad was a volunteer worker so it also wasn't not surprising that they didn't have a ridiculously massive house with 7 cars. Quinn imagined that even if they could afford all that they wouldn't get it, they just seemed like the type of people who would prefer to live with a modest amount of money and spend it wisely and not care about having the best of everything, which wasn't something she could say about her family, especially about her father.

"Do you want me to show you around or do you just want to go straight to my room?" Rachel asked as she closed the front door behind them. Quinn liked the idea of being shown Rachel's house so she asked for a tour. They went through the living room (which was full of family photos and a few trophies, mostly won by Rachel but some won by her dads) to the kitchen which was modest and didn't look very used, which made sense as Rachel said they mostly have takeout. "That was from two nights ago when dad was trying to make lasagne, emphasis on trying!" Rachel says as she points to a point in the wall that was covered with black smoke. "He's been insisting on cooking an actual meal instead of buying takeout all the time. Something about eating unhealthily, though I'm not convinced that's the real reason!"

"I gotta say I'm kind of regretting agreeing to stay for dinner!" Quinn joked, eyeing the wall.

Rachel laughed loudly. "Don't let dad here you say that, he doesn't like it when people insult his ability to cook!" Quinn's smile dropped at this and she nodded seriously. Rachel noticed and laughed even more loudly than before. "I was only joking! Daddy and I tease him all the time, it's okay!" Quinn nodded but didn't say anything.

Rachel chuckled and led her out of the kitchen through to the garden which wasn't very big but had a vegetable patch and a trampoline. "Daddy bought the trampoline when I was a kid but I never used it much, trampolining by yourself isn't very fun. But it is a nice place to lie and look at the stars in the summer. I do that a lot."

"That sounds nice, I often look at the stars from my window but it sounds like your way is a lot more interesting…and comfortable!" Quinn mused, smiling slightly.

"Well maybe one night we can look at the stars together?" Rachel suggested.

"Really?" the thought of lying on the trampoline and looking at the stars with Rachel lying next to her was just about the best thing she could imagine.

"Well only if you're really nice to me, I don't allow just anyone on my trampoline!" Rachel said faux seriously.

"Darn now I'm gonna have to pretend to like you aren't I?"

Rachel gasped and playfully pushed Quinn. The blonde laughed and promised she was only joking before Rachel could push her again. "Okay come on then, I'll show you the rest of the house if you promise to behave." Quinn playfully crossed her heart at this and Rachel nodded her head in approval before leading them back into the house.

Rachel took her through the rest of the house, which was all just as homey as the living room. This was what a home was supposed to feel like, Quinn thought to herself as she looked at all the family pictures and art work and books lying around and little post it notes stuck to the fridge.

They got a drink each before heading to Rachel's bedroom. As soon as Quinn walked in she was struck by just how Rachel it was. She loved it. There were playbills and posters covering the walls and trophies everywhere. Her sheets were pink with gold stars all over and she even had an elliptic in the corner of her room. It was just how Quinn imagined it would be and it made her smile to herself.

"Sorry, I know my room is quite childish but I like it and I don't want to change it!" Rachel proclaimed, as if she had had to explain why her room was like this all the time.

"What? No I love it, it fits you so well!" Quinn stated with sincerity.

"Yeah?" Rachel asked unsurely.

"Yes," the blonde assured her.

Rachel smiled and said, "Well thank you!" before sitting on the bed. Quinn sat on the chair by the table and a silence which was bordering on awkward came over them. Quinn noticed a paper with song titles and she remembered why she was invited there in the first place. "So we gonna practice or did I come here just so you could show off all your trophies?"

Rachel laughed. "Well I'm not going to lie, that was one of the reasons!"

Quinn chortled. "I'm not in the least bit surprised!"

"Anyway, like I said at Glee, we could do "Kiss Me" but there are also other songs I thought we could do," Rachel said getting down to business. "There's actually a piece of paper on the table if you can find it."

"Yeah already got it!"

"Okay then come over here and we can look through them together and choose one."

Quinn got up and sat on the edge of the bed. "I can't see the paper if you sit all the way over there!" Quinn smiled nervously and scooted over a little.

"Oh my days Quinn! Come on, come sit up here beside me would you?!"

Quinn laughed awkwardly. "Sorry." She took off her shoes and scooted up and across the bed so she and Rachel were side by side with their backs leaning against the head board.

"Okay so honestly I don't know why I put those last two songs on there because clearly they wouldn't work…not well anyway!" Rachel stated and Quinn checked which songs she meant and nodded. She could see why Rachel would say that, although she actually thinks Rachel could make anything work.

"My favourite choice is still "Kiss Me" but I also like "Thinking Of You" and "Iris" What do you think?" she asked while still looking at the paper.

Quinn thought it over, she didn't want to give a half ass answer because she knew Rachel wanted her to really think about it and give a truthful, thought out answer. She wasn't too keen on singing "Thinking Of You" since she wasn't sure she can sing as powerfully as she would need to for that song. She loved "Kiss Me" and she has always thought it suited her voice, but she also loved the song "Iris" and while that song would be a bit more of a challenge, she didn't want Rachel thinking she was just agreeing with her. So she said "I can't choose between "Kiss Me" and "Iris". "Kiss Me" suits my voice more than "Iris" and while "Iris" would be more of a challenge, I think if we worked hard on it, it would sound absolutely amazing. So maybe we could do a mashup?"

Rachel looked at her, clearly pleased, which made Quinn feel proud. She wanted to make Rachel proud of her every day if this was what it feels like to do so!

"Quinn that is an amazing idea. I was wondering if we should do a mashup but my choice of songs wasn't as good as yours. This is going to be amazing! It's so nice to work with someone who takes this seriously and actually thinks of ideas!" Rachel praised her enthusiastically. Quinn smiled toothily at the praise.

Two hours later they had decided which parts of the songs they were going to keep and they had pretty much chosen the outline of the finished product. They were about to go through their first run through when they heard the door open and a voice shout out, "Rachel I'm home!"

"That's daddy," Rachel explained to Quinn. The blonde went stiff, and Rachel had to try and calm her down again. "Hey it's okay. Daddy is going to be totally fine, I promise."

Quinn dumbly nodded even though she clearly wasn't convinced.

"Come on, let's go down," Rachel said, standing up and making her way to the door, expecting Quinn to follow.

They went down, Quinn was following timidly behind Rachel and when she entered the kitchen, where her dad was getting a drink, Quinn stopped.

"Hi daddy," she greeted happily.

"Rachel sweetie!" he greeted back equally as happily. "I was thinking maybe you weren't here."

"Sorry, I was in my room practicing a song."

"It's okay sweetie, so how was school today?" he asked, clearly interested. "Did you get your History results back?

"Yes. I got a B.

"Well done sweetie, I told you that you could do it!" he exclaimed happily, giving his daughter a hug.

"Thanks daddy," Rachel smiled at him. "Oh I almost forgot, guess what?"

"Ooh I love this game! Uhm you met Liza?"

"You really think that I would be this calm, and I would have almost forgotten about it, if I had met the Liza Minnelli?" she asked.

"Good point! Okay let's see…"

"How about I just tell you?" Rachel interrupted him.

"But that spoils the fun!" her dad pouted jokingly.

Rachel laughed at her father's antics. "Sorry daddy but I really think I should just tell you or we could be here for hours!"

"Fine!" he agreed grudgingly.

"I have a friend over."

"A real friend or another imaginary one because I really don't see anyone!" he said as he pointedly looked around.

"Ha ha!" Rachel fake laughed. "A real one, she's just hiding around the corner because she's kind of shy."

"She's friends with you and she's shy? How does that work?" he asked teasingly.

"Daddy stop making fun of me!" Rachel sulked.

"Sorry sweetie, you know I'm only joking!" Rachel kept on pouting anyway. "So is she going to make herself known or is she going to keep avoiding me? Because while it's okay to be shy, it is considered rude to downright ignore the parents!" he said loudly enough for Quinn to hear.

"Daddy!" Rachel whisper shouted at him.

"I'm only joking honey," he whispered back. "I'm just trying to get her to come out!"

It was at that moment that Quinn appeared from behind the corner. She made her way forward until she was beside Rachel.

"Well hello miss! How nice of you to make yourself known!" he teased.

"I'm sorry sir, I really didn't mean to be so rude," Quinn apologised, her voice sounding very unfamiliar to Rachel, who was used to Quinn being confident and sure of herself all the time.

"Oh honey I was only joking, you weren't being rude at all!" he tried to reassure her. "I'm a kidder, that's what I do, I kid!"

"That's what you think but really you're just mean!" Rachel told him.

"Hush child!" he jokingly scolded her.

"See?!" she exclaimed.

They both started laughing then, but Rachel noticed how nervous and uncomfortable Quinn still looked and so she said to her, "Quinn it's really okay, daddy was honestly just joking. He didn't think you were being rude at all."

Quinn looked at Rachel and locked eyes with her. Rachel smiled encouragingly at her and subtly nodded. Quinn smiled back, and Rachel noticed that there was slightly more confidence in her eyes than before.

"So you're Quinn huh?" Rachel's daddy suddenly asked Quinn.

This made all Quinn's confidence disappear and she suddenly wanted to run away, but she didn't. "Uhh…yes I uhh yes sir."

"I've heard a lot about you Quinn," he continued.

Quinn looked like she was about to faint. "I uhh…Mr Berry…Sir…I…I really can't…I…" she stuttered, not having a single clue what to say. _Do I apologise? Do I deny that I am that Quinn? Do I swear that I've changed? Do I say nothing? What do I do?_ She asked herself.

Rachel's daddy talked before she had the chance to make up her mind, which was probably a good thing. "Oh yes, Rachel talks about you all the time. Apparently you, and I quote, "are out of this world beautiful!"" he said as he used air quotes.

"Daddy!" Rachel exclaimed clearly embarrassed.

Quinn blushed deeply, much deeper than Rachel was blushing right now, but Rachel's daddy was chuckling deviously as Rachel gaped at him. "You also apparently made sure the Glee club got a page in the school year book two years ago after Rachel made it clear how much she wanted it."

Quinn looked up in surprise at this; she didn't know anyone knew that it was her who got that for Glee. She met Rachel's eyes and Rachel smiled at her. "Yes, she did do that!"

"Well then, now that I know you are indeed that Quinn…it's nice to meet you," Rachel's daddy smiled at Quinn.

Quinn smiled nervously back and stepped forward. She extended her hand out to him and said politely, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr Berry."

He held back a chuckle at the girl's politeness, which he found very endearing, and shook Quinn's hand. "The pleasure is all mine. And please, call me Leroy."

Quinn nodded politely and stepped back beside Rachel who took her hand and squeezed it encouragingly. Quinn looked down at Rachel and smiled thankfully.

"Are you staying for dinner Quinn?" Leroy asked.

"Rachel did offer, but I will only stay if it is okay with you and your husband," Quinn replied.

"Yes it's totally okay with me," he assured her. "I would order some take out so we could eat in about half an hour, but my husband has started this new hobby of blowing up our kitchen while he makes food to try and kill us!"

Quinn laughed at that and said, "Yeah Rachel told me about that, she even showed me the evidence!"

"Oh you mean the blackened wall in the kitchen? Yeah that was a scary night. I was sure the whole house was going to go down!"

Quinn laughed again and Leroy started laughing too. Rachel smiled happily at the scene, she was glad that Quinn was loosening up a little and that her face had some colour in it again!

"Well since we're going to have to wait for him to get back and to attempt to cook, dinner won't be ready for at least two hours," Leroy said when he had finished laughing. "So I'm going to do some work in my office and you two can entertain yourselves somehow I'm sure."

"Bye daddy," Rachel called as Leroy started to walk towards his office.

"Have fun sweetie," he called back to her. "Just don't force Quinn to do anything she doesn't want to do!"

"Daddy!" she exclaimed.

"You know what I'm talking about honey!" he said before scuttling off and leaving Rachel pouting at no one.

"What was he talking about?" Quinn asked between chuckles.

"I have no idea!" the diva lied.

"Yeah okay," Quinn said in clear disbelief. Rachel gave her the eye so Quinn put up her hands in mock surrender.

"I'm changing the subject so I don't get angry at you!" Rachel stated. "Do you want to watch a movie? We could keep practicing but I think we deserve a break, don't you?"

"Definitely," Quinn agreed.

"I have a selection in my room and a TV so we can watch up there; it will save us from my daddy when he tries to be nosey!"

"I heard that!" Leroy's voice called from his study.

"See?" Rachel pointed out with a very "told you so" look which made Quinn giggle.

Rachel nodded and led Quinn up the stairs, back to her room. Quinn looked through Rachel's DVD collection. She wasn't surprised to see a lot of musicals and also a lot of old movies (Quinn loved old movies but no one knows this as it isn't seen as "cool"). She also wasn't in the mood for an old movie as she wanted to be able to talk through it and she would never talk through a classic like "Breakfast At Tiffany's" or "The Little Princess", the original one with Shirley Temple of course, both of which Rachel had). She noticed a small collection of horrors which surprised her as she wouldn't think Rachel would like horrors. "You have scary movies?"

"Mmh I don't watch them though!" Rachel stated as though that was totally normal.

Why do you have them then?" she asked, genuinely interested.

"My dad teases me and says I can't watch scary movies so I buy them to prove him wrong, then I go online and find out what the movie is about and so when he asks about it I can actually answer!" she explains. Quinn laughed loudly and heartily at this which made Rachel smile fondly at her.

"What?" Quinn asked self-consciously, she never liked the sound of her laugh.

"Nothing, I just really love it when you laugh like that…like your just letting everything go and you don't have a care in the world…I don't know, it's just so nice to see you like that." Quinn just looked at Rachel, clearly touched by that

"Anyway so I don't want to watch a horror but we can watch anything else there," Rachel broke the silence.

Quinn kept looking at Rachel for a while longer before answering, "Okay well I guess I'm in the mood for a comedy."

"Ooh I know, we could watch Friends," the brunette suggested excitedly.

"That's not a movie," Quinn pointed out with a smile.

"Yes I know, miss smarty pants!" Quinn smirked at this. "But we might not have time to watch a whole movie anyway so a series would actually be better, plus we could easily talk through it as we know it so well."

"I don't actually know it well," Quinn admitted.

"Well maybe not as much as I do because I watch it all the time, in fact the only thing I watch more is Funny Girl, which says a lot!"

"Actually I don't know it at all cause I've never watched it!"

"What?!" Rachel basically screamed. Quinn nodded and shrugged. "How can you not have watched Friends? Everyone has watched Friends. I don't understand!" Rachel asks clearly confused by this.

"Calm down, it's not like it's the end of the world!" Quinn joked but Rachel gave her look that clearly said she begged to differ. "It's really not that weird you know, not everyone has watched it!"

"Obviously not everyone but 99% of people, people who have access to TV of course, have watched it…how come you never did?" Rachel was not letting this go. She just didn't understand how someone could have never watched Friends. It was without a doubt the best comedy series ever and was Rachel's all-time favourite series. It was her go to think to watch (with the exception of Funny Girl of course) and it never failed to make her laugh or cheer her up when she was feeling sad.

"I just never did" Quinn shrugged.

"Oh come on there has to be more of a reason than that, I refuse to believe you just didn't watch it!" Rachel exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"Because it's so awesome and you're not as unawesome as to choose to just not watch it!"

"Unawesome? I'm pretty sure that's not a word!" Quinn pointed out, laughing at how seriously Rachel was taking this.

"You have better taste than that!" Rachel continued as if Quinn hadn't said anything. "Well I hope so anyway or I'm not sure we can be friends!"

"Seriously?" Quinn laughed again at the girl.

Rachel simply nodded so Quinn sighed and said, "You won't like the reason but fine!" the shorter girl looked confused but interested at this development. "My dad wouldn't let me. All my friends were talking about so I went home and watched the pilot one day and my dad came in at the bit where we find out that Ross's ex-wife is a lesbian and my dad got really angry. He turned the TV off, took the DVD out and broke it, then he shouted at me and told me I was never to watch rubbish like that!"

Rachel looked shocked and Quinn looked sad when she had finished the short story. "Sorry." "Why are you sorry?" Rachel asked perplexed.

"I'm sorry that my dad is like that. That there are people like that," the cheerleader explained.

"Yeah I am too, but it's not your place to apologise, you aren't him, you aren't any of those ignorant people. You aren't the one who feels like that or says things like that. Never apologise for what other people do Quinn."

The blonde kept quite but nodded slightly.

"I'm the one who should be saying sorry," Rachel stated.

Quinn's head snapped up. "What? For what?! You never did anything!" she insisted.

"No I know, but I am sorry that you had to live with a father who had those types of feelings and who was so ignorant and hateful. It does mean that I respect you a lot more though," she explained.

"Why?" Quinn asked, truly wanting to know how someone like Rachel could ever respect someone like her.

"Because even with a father like that you managed to turn into a kind, sweet, funny, loving girl."

Quinn laughed self-deprecatory at Rachel's explanation. "I am none of those things Rachel!"

"Yes you are," the singer insisted.

"Have you forgotten all I have done? All I did to you especially?" Quinn asked.

"No of course not. I don't think I'll ever forget," she replied. Quinn looked miserable at this. "But that isn't who you are. That's never been who you are. Sure, you made mistakes and you were a real bitch at times, but I always knew that that wasn't who you were deep down. I always knew that you were doing those things for other reasons that you were just a hateful, mean bully. I knew that there was more to you deep down!" Rachel said with as much sincerity as she could muster. She needed for Quinn to believe this because the thought of Quinn thinking that she was an awful person cut Rachel up.

"I'm not sure if there is!" Quinn whispered, her voice close to cracking.

"Are you kidding me? There is so much more to you. You aren't just a bitchy selfish cheerleader! You are a caring friend who will calmly explain things to Brittany. You are a forgiving person who doesn't hold grudges against Santana no matter what happens between you two. You are a protective friend who offered to keep me safe at my first party. You are a funny girl who makes me laugh with her sarcastic comments and dry humour! You are so, so much more than what you think you are, you are a great person and I am so privileged to have you as a friend," Rachel finished off her little speech with her arms on Quinn's shoulders and her eyes looking deeply into Quinn's, trying with all her might to show her how honest she was being. As for Quinn, she had tears in her eyes and so she was blinking furiously trying to will them away. R noticed this and so she let go off Quinn's shoulders with one last squeeze and turned around and made her way towards the TV. She wanted to give her space as she expected she didn't like people seeing her cry.

"I am putting on Friends because your excuse was rubbish and really any excuse is rubbish and I will not let you get off with not watching it okay?" she said after a while.

There was a short pause and Rachel heard Quinn clearing her throat and sniffing quietly. "Okay," she finally said.

Rachel looked around and Quinn smiles at her with gratitude. Rachel smiles back and then puts the DVD in. "We're starting from the very beginning and we are going to watch as many as we can and then you can borrow them and you have to promise to watch all of them okay?"

Quinn laughed lightly. "Okay."

"Good. Now sit down and prepare to have your life changed!" Again Quinn chuckled and she made herself comfortable on the bed. Rachel came and sat down next to her and turned it on.

Half way through the second episode Rachel laid her head on Quinn's shoulder and by the end of the third one she was laying down with her head in Quinn's lap. Quinn desperately wanted to run her fingers through it but it wasn't until a third of the way through the fifth episode that she plucked up the courage to do so. Rachel smiled at the feel and snuggled deeper into Quinn's lap which made Quinn freeze.

"No don't stop, that was nice," Rachel said.

Quinn steadied her breathing and shakily continued to run her fingers through her hair. Just as Quinn was about to start to move her fingers down to Rachel's shoulders they heard a knock at the door. Quinn's hands snapped away from Rachel's head and she tried to move away but Rachel hadn't sat up so Quinn couldn't.

"Yes?" Rachel called out.

"Dinners ready girls," Hiram's voice called in to them from the other side of the door.

"Okay we'll be down just now," Rachel replied as she sat up and yawned. "Wow I was so ready to fall asleep, that always happens when people play with my hair!" She turned off the TV and stood up. "Anyway, come on then!"

Quinn stood up and then sat down again as she remembered what awaited her downstairs. "What's wrong with…oh are you nervous about meeting dad?" Rachel asked.

Quinn just nodded.

"I told you it will be fine, it was totally okay with daddy wasn't it?" Rachel pointed out.

"Yeah but I don't think he knew who I was…I mean he knew who I was but he didn't know that I was the same girl who bullied you."

"Oh no he knows."

"Really? Then how come he didn't say anything?"

"Why would he? What would be the point of bringing up all the mistakes you made in the past?" Rachel challenged.

"I don't know maybe because I made his daughters life hell years?!" pointed out as though it was obvious, which for Quinn it was.

"Yes but that was in the past. I stole a movie once but he doesn't constantly bring that up!"

"It's different!" Quinn argued.

"In some ways, yes" Rachel agreed. "But in others it's totally the same. They were both mistakes and both in the past and they don't define us as people."

Quinn shook her head. "I don't get how you can be so…okay and forgiving and just like…well like this about it all!"

Rachel just smiled like it's a secret. "You do because you are the same."

"Huh?" Quinn was totally confused by that.

"Come on lets go down. Dad will be fine just like dad was okay? Plus if you don't come down or if you leave then dad will think it's because of his cooking and he'll be offended so…" Quinn sighed at this but got up anyway. Rachel beamed. "Good girl!" Quinn scowled at Rachel which made Rachel giggle which of course made Quinn laugh. They were still laughing when they got downstairs, but as soon as Quinn saw Rachel's dad Hiram watching them from the kitchen, she stopped laughing. Rachel noticed and held Quinn by the hand and led her into the dining room.

"Dad I'd like you to meet Quinn. Quinn this is my dad, Hiram."

Quinn gulped and timidly stepped forward and stuck out her hand. Hiram didn't find it endearing like Leroy had and instead simply accepted it and shook her hand, rather firmly.

"Quinn Fabray I presume?" he stated rather than asked.

Quinn gulped again and stuttered "Uhh y-y-yes, sir. Yes sir."

"I've heard a lot about you," he said and Quinn knew what kind of things he was talking about. It wasn't the things Leroy had mentioned, but the things Quinn felt awful about every single day of her life. She looked down and felt tears threaten her eyes. She knew this would happen. She knew Hiram wouldn't be as forgiving, which was completely understanding and normal. No parent, except Leroy it seemed, would ever simply accept that their child was friends with their former tormenter. She was about to start apologising and promising to leave when Leroy spoke.

"Please Quinn, sit down." Quinn looked up at Hiram who took a second to study her before he nodded at her. She nodded back, in what she hoped he understood as thanks, and sat down next to Rachel.

* * *

><p>"Thanks for coming, and sorry about my dad…I really don't know why he did that," Rachel said as she walked Quinn to the door.<p>

"Its' okay, I totally get it," Quinn replied as she put on her coat.

"Are you sure? He was a bit mean!" Rachel asked, opening the door for Quinn.

"Yeah but I deserved it," Quinn said in acceptance, walking out the door.

Rachel shrugged. "Yeah I guess you did."

"Oi!" Quinn exclaimed, turning around to gape at Rachel who was standing just inside the house.

"What? You kept laying down reverses so he never got a go, you can't blame him for laying down 3 pick-up 4s on you!" Rachel explained.

"I suppose but it was still mean! That was the reason I lost!" Quinn pouted.

"That was the reason? Are you sure it wasn't just because you're rubbish?!" Rachel teased.

"Hey you can't say anything, you lost the first round," Quinn argued back.

"Yes but I meant to lose so that you would think I was rubbish and I could catch you off guard in the next round …which I won!" Quinn laughed loudly at this and Rachel chuckled. "No but seriously thank you for coming, it was fun!"

"Well thank you for inviting me, I'm sorry that I was so quite at the beginning, I was just so nervous!"

"It's okay, I understand why. But it was all okay in the end wasn't it?"

"Yeah, I mean Leroy kept looking at me like he was trying to read my mind and figure out my intentions, but it really was okay. So much better than I was expecting!"

"I won't say I told you so but…well I did tell you!"

Quinn chuckled. "You really are an odd one aren't you?"

R smiled toothily and nods. "Yup, and proud of it!"

"Good, I'm glad you're proud of who you are. If my bullying had made you change yourself then I don't think I would be able to live with myself." Quinn stated, suddenly changing the mood of the conversation.

Rachel smiled lightly at her. "Well you didn't so it's all good!"

Quinn shook her head in disagreement but didn't say anything. "Anyway, I guess I should go, I told my mum I would be back before 10."

"Okay goodnight" Rachel said as leant forward and wrapped her arms around Quinn tightly. Quinn hugged the shorter girl back and smiled happily. Rachel pulled away and smiled at Quinn. Quinn smiled back and turned around and started walking to her car. When she reached her car, she turned around and waved at Rachel. She got in the car and drove off, a smile plastered on her face. And back at the door Rachel watched the car go with a similarly big smile on her face.

* * *

><p><strong>I have no idea how that mashup would work but hey! I like both those songs and I think that they suit Quinn's voice so just go with it.<strong>

**I was planning on publishing this chapter a few weeks ago but I haven't had much internet or computer access since I'm on holiday. So that also means that the next chapter may not be up for a while. Sorry.**

**As always please review and tell me what you thought :)**


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